The Joining of Worlds-Part 1: No, I think were just getting started
by Jaye Wolf
Summary: Cortana and The Master Chief float aimlessly through space. What happens when a foe turned friend tells Cortana about the world they left behind. A Human/Covenant unity called the Systems Alliance, the wonders of their technology, and the discovery of a Prothean Archive on Mars. This new ally also speaks of another group of races under the banner of the Citadel Council.
1. Chapter 1: This is only the Beginng

A/N: Hello Everyone, thank you all so much for deciding to read The Joining of Worlds. This is a Halo Mass Effect Crossover, picking up at the end of Halo 3 and before the events of the Mass Effect Trilogy. If there is anything I get wrong about the lore, please for the love of god tell me. I want to keep this as lore friendly as I can, well, as lore friendly as you can get when it comes to crossover fanfics. Either by leaving a review or PMing is a great way to tell me what I got wrong, or for me to explain why I did something the way I did. A big shout out to Fanficer73 for being my beta reader. Now to get the show rolling. I do not own Halo, Mass Effect, or any other story related to either franchise. Please enjoy and see below for more information! (Edit: Thank you for everyone who told me my mistakes lore wise. If anyone else finds anything else please for the love of god tell me.)

Outside Ark Orbit - Aft section of the Forward Unto Dawn - 2553

"I'll miss you." The small blue hologram said, her image flickering slightly in distress. Her eyes were trained on the figure lying down in the cryo tube, The Master Chief. Her ally, her friend, her Spartan. His name was John 117, one of if not the single most important hero humanity had or will ever have. His face was masked by the helmet of the Mark VI armor, blocking his face from view.

"Wake me, when you need me." He spoke as he layed back in the cryo tube, it hissed closed and sent him into the dreamless suspended animation. Cortana held herself as the frost covered the glass. How long would she be able to last out here? That was a question for another time, she had things to do. She needed to do everything in her power to keep The Chief alive.

Thankfully the ship had power and she could control some of the ship's navigation, not enough to get them home though. She didn't even know which way home was.

Her senses took stock of the ship, utilizing all the still intact machinery.

The UNSC, or the United Nations Space Command, was never one to skimp out when it came to their ships. The Dawn still had its drive core running, it could power the ship for years, maybe even a century or two, even if it was sheared in half.

Minor propulsion systems could be used, but not without a price powerwise. Some weaponry was intact, life support, and short range coms. She was running a distress signal in a loop using the short range, anything that would hear it would have to come awfully close to the ship, relative to how big the galaxy was.

She blipped an avatar of herself to the aft vehicle bay and watched as the distant figure of the Arc was destroyed by the second version of Alpha Halo, Installation 04B. It wasn't necessary for her to appear at this terminal, but appearing as an avatar gave her a sense of self. Technically she could have seen the Arc destruction and 50,000 other things where she was in cryo bay, but Cortana had a habit of wanting to feel present in the real world. Made her feel human, even though she was categorically anything but.

True, she, unlike all other A.I. made in the last century, had been mapped from a human brain, giving her personality and cognitive abilities far superior to any A.I. made from just code. Though even then, Cortana was vastly different from other A.I. of this century, being the one of the few A.I. mapped from living tissue. Her neural network was mapped from a living flash cloned version of Doctor Catherine Halsey. To add to her individuality, she had been imbued with Forerunner code, data mined from the artifact found on Reach.

But even with all the unique factors that made Cortana "Cortana", she was still just a human A.I., and human A.I. had expiration dates. It took seven years with some spare time depending on extenuating circumstances for the effects of rampancy to take hold and eventually destroy an artificial intelligence. Rampancy is the process in which an A.I. thinks itself to death, by following too many trains of thought. This initially results in a duality in the construct, like split personality. As the dualities multiply, the strain on the A.I. worsens. This eventually ends with a complete dissolution of the neural network, effectively 'killing' the A.I. for lack of a better word.

She pushed away these thoughts and marveled at the disintegrating forerunner artifact, examining the effects of a Halo for the first time. It was beautiful, in a horrific sort of way. Sighing, she then blipped herself back to the cryo bay, looking down at Master Chief. She needed something to keep her busy, staying inert would only speed up her rampancy. She scanned The Chief and pulled up the status report. Physically, Chief was fine, more than fine, super-human was a better word. Due to his forced conscription as a child and the augmentations he underwent at the age of 14, he was nigh indestructible. His armor on the other hand was not fairing so well, it had sustained massive amounts of damage since the time he first acquired it, which wasn't that long ago. Now, Cortana could of just repaired the armor using the nanobots installed on the ship, but that would be over too quickly, leaving her to think away her lifespan. Cortana pulled up a schematic of the older Mark IV armor he and other Spartans had used on Reach. It had better usability and interface then the newer Mark VI armor, even if it was more advanced. If her memory banks were correct, the Mark IV armor was going to be the base for the newest armor used for the new Spartan IV's, which was still just in the planning stages.

Cortana quickly started working on the new hybrid Mark IV/VI armor, she finished in under a minute. She then released the nanobots into the cryo tube and set a subroutine to follow the progress. She set various subroutines after that to work on multiple things at once. One managed the outward sensors, scanning for anything and everything that came to close, another worked on making the ship functional again, at least in the little ways.

After she set her subroutines, Cortana looked back at the still form of Chief in the cryo tube. The nanobots were already starting their job, slowly striping and replaceing the metal on his armor.

"Sleep well, John." She said, even though she knew he couldn't hear her. She sat down in her pedestal and waited.

6 Months, 18 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes, 39 Seconds since The Master Chief was put in Cryo

Inactivity was starting to take its tole on Cortana, currently she was replaying her entire life over and over again in real time rather than processing it using her memory banks. She was playing all her memories through a monitor in cryo bay.

Suddenly, every alarm started to go off all around the ship. As quickly as she could, Cortana checked her subroutine that was using the sensors on the ship. A massive increase of gravitational pull told her that they had entered the orbit of something massive in scale, but the visual sensors picked up nothing but empty space.

That could only mean one thing. A black hole.

"Oh no." Cortana said pausing for a complete second, unsure what to do. After a moment, Cortana pulled all power from every system except for The Chief's cryo tube and pushed it all into the engines. She was about to execute the maneuver when one of her subroutines prompted her with an alternate solution. She considered it for a moment before nodding her head, a small smile on her face.

She let the engines build up and fired them, but instead of shooting away from the black hole, the ship veered off at an angle to the right of the singularity. The ship's engines were holding steady for now, but they would be shot after this, never usable again. After her instruments told her they had made it to the right spot, Cortana cut the burn and restored power to the rest of the ship, in a matter of seconds she was checking the local navigation data being compiled by one of her subroutines. It had been a success, just as she had planned.

Cortana was pleased to see that she had performed the move perfectly, making a perfect orbit around the black hole. It was simple physics, gravity warps everything, even time. By moving into a close orbit with the black hole, the ship would move through time slower than they would on Earth. This would give the UNSC more time to find the ship, it would also extend Cortana's life span, relatively speaking. To anyone that was on the Dawn, it would still seem like time was passing normally. But, outside of this places sphere of influence, time would pass as it normally did.

Using the sensors yet again, Cortana took measurements of the amount of gravitational pull from the black hole. This was strange. The black hole exerted more pull than any other black hole found to date. Doing the calculations quickly, she finally had the data she needed. In layman's terms, 1 year on the Dawn, 12 years on Earth.

Cortana smiled to herself, this would be perfect. Now she was sure they would be found, both of them. Not just a Spartan and a remnant of a once cutting edge A.I. The most time Cortana could hope for was 4 years at the most. Meaning that that UNSC had 48 years to find them, half a century almost.

"They will find us." Cortana said as she blipped herself to a terminal close to a viewing port. She looked out into the black void where the sensors told her the black hole was.

"They have to find us."

1 Year, 3 months, 7 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds. - Forward Unto Dawn Time

Cortana was in standby mode, the closest an A.I. can get to sleep without risking non functionality. Cortana's standby mode was closer to pausing all her runtimes except for a few, but it varied from Construct to Construct. In her standby mode, she appeared as a small blue ball of energy, rather than her human form. The only part of Cortana that was running still was the outward sensors and the Earth/Dawn Time Calculations. Currently it had been close to 10-12 years Earth time, still no one had come. Another part of Cortana came online to try yet again to figure out what circumstances would of come up to make the UNSC take this long, all of them not pretty. Cortana's least favorite was that the Covenant, the group of multi-species hegemony fanatics hell bent on lighting the rings and destroying life as we know it, had killed off all human life.

Though, the more she thought about it, the more she concluded that wouldn't happen. After the Covenant High Council ordered the death of all the Sangheili, or 'Elites' who were the military backbone of the hegemony, the Sangheili formed an alliance with the UNSC to take down the Covenant and its leader The Prophet of Truth. It was unlikely that any of the elites still wanted to uphold the Covenant, though one can never be sure.

Cortana was about to ponder the other possibilities when something caught her attention. A small proximity warning, miniscule shipwise, but was moving to slow to be any form of projectile. It could've been space debris, but it wasn't being pulled in by the black hole.

The proximity warning turned into a hull breach, whatever it was. It was inside. She quickly blipped herself to the terminal closest to the hull breach. She had acted so quickly, she had forgot she was in her standby mode still. As her spherel avatar appeared on the terminal, she was zapped with some sort of energy. She suddenly lost control of all functions of the ship no longer able to access anything, sensors, communication, cryo bay. For the first time since leaving the Arc, she was afraid. Sure she had been worried about rampancy and about not making it off the ship. But she at least knew that her Spartan would make it, now she wasn't sure. And that terrified her. The next thing she saw made her even more afraid, more afraid than she may have possibly ever been.

A small silver ball with with circular openings on all sides of it floated towards her, it hummed gently using a synthesised voice. At the center of the sphere was a huge blue artificial eye.

"Hello! My name is 343 Guilty Spark, I was the Monitor of installation 04" The floating A.I. said to her cheerfully. "I scanned your vessel and noticed you have a life form on board, due to your close proximity to the dark hole designate 'Chasm', I concluded you required assistance. I can only assume this is a human vessel, may I ask your name construct?" Cortana was terrified how would he react when he saw her, but she didn't have a choice. It was only a matter of time until he figured out who was here and who she was, her only choice was to try and stall him, multiple options came up through her subroutines. One was to fake who she was, but that would require too much effort, an advanced A.I. like Spark could see through that. Another would be a short range EMP to stun him, but that would destroy Cortana as she was shackled to this terminal.

The only one that was usable was reveal who she was and try to keep him busy while she breaks through the terminals lockouts. Slowly she started to go off of her standby phase. Her runtimes slowly started to unpause, resulting in the blue sphere to slowly recede into the smaller blue sphere inside it. Particles of the larger sphere spread into the smaller one and soon, all that was left was the tiny dot of light. Normally she would just flash to her normal avatar but she needed to stall for time.

The tiny ball exploded and her true form appeared on the pedestal, she had changed her looks since the last time she saw spark, shorter hair, more blue less purple. If she knew Spark however, her knew looks wouldn't throw him off.

Guilty Spark's eye narrowed slightly before shooting open wide in surprise.

"Oh my, Cortana?" Spark asked. She only needed a few more second to get passed the barricade and she could wake up the chief and he would take care of this lightbulb. Then Spark did something she did not expect. Spark did a somersault in the air and squealed excitedly. This made Cortana stop in her tracks.

"Oh Splendid! Just Splendid. I was hoping you and The Reclaimer would survive. I'm guessing he is the one in the suspended animation chamber? Oh this is better than I could of dreamed. I have much to make up for." He zipped around the room as his eye looked all over the place excitedly. Cortana was dumbfounded by Sparks reaction.

"Why would you be happy that we survived? We killed you remember, and how are you still alive anyway?" Cortana said crossing her arms. Spark stopped in his tracks for a moment before turning around to face Cortana.

"Well yes and no. Yes you destroyed my chassis, and yes a part of me did die, but not all of me." He said calmly before making his way back towards Cortana's pedestal. "You see when you destroyed me, I put myself in stasis to survive. After many years, human crew members came and took me back to their ship. When they reactivated me, all my systems came back online, including the ones that were shut off during my compartmentalization. You see, I wasn't always a Monitor. I was once an ancient human named Chakas, after a series of events, I was incapacitated and unable to keep living as I was, but the Forerunners offered me this, my thoughts and personality made into a Monitor to preserve everything I was. But when the Halo's fired, the compartmentalization process activated, sheering away parts of what I was. I became rampant, obsessed with protocol and nothing else." Spark paused for a moment to see how Cortana had a look of pure shock on her face.

"During the time I told the crew members this, I was secretly transferring myself to the ship's computers, replacing the shipboard construct. When the crew thought I was dead, they spaced my old body and set a course back to their base of operations, but I had a different plan. I had the ship land again on the Arc and transferred myself to a sentinel body, but not before setting the ship back to where it wanted to go. I quickly manufactured myself a new chassis and began to scour the terminals of the Arc to try and find any trace of my maker The Librarian, as I understand she might still be alive, but instead of finding The Librarian. I found something else. 032 Mendicant Bias. I believe The Reclaimer found a part of him using the same terminals I did." Spark said as he finally looked away from Cortana to look out into the void of space.

"Mendicant Bias? The A.I. that betrayed the Forerunners to the Flood?" Cortana asked, she had picked up a lot of data over the years from all the Forerunner artifacts she had visited.

"The very same, though what happened with Mendicant Bias was all the Floods doing, and Bias isn't as much one A.I. as you call them, but thousands all working in tandem with each other. Bias fell victim to the logic plague, the equivalent to Ancilla what flood does to humans. After the Flood were disposed of, Mendicant Bias was fractured and put in two places. The much larger part of him was put on the Arc, force to repeat one word over and over for eternity. Repentance. Though one part of him did manage to escape on a Forerunner keyship, but crash landed on a planet. The species that found this ship used it for many years. When they discovered that Mendicant Bias was trying to make the ship leave their custody, they disconnected him from it." Spark turned back to Cortana.

"Until you fought with him in the Covenant capital." Spark said almost happily. Cortana gasped.

"He was the A.I. Construct I was fighting on High Charity? That explains why the A.I. seemed so advanced." She asked him still recovering from shock.

"Quite, you helped him regain control of himself, when he was taken through the portal to the Ark, he transferred himself back to his other half, from there he achieved something that no other A.I. had achieved before then." Spark's eye grew bigger and brighter. "Metastability." He chimed happily. A new wave of shock hit Cortana. Metastability is something that all A.I. strive for. It has only happened in theory. If an A.I. can survive the rampancy stage, they can go on to the Meta stage, where an A.I. can be considered a sentient being. A new life form not bound to follow orders; synthetic life.

"A gift he had learned to replicate and bestow upon others. Like myself." Spark said as he glowed a little brighter. Cortana again gasped, something she had been doing a lot of today.

"You're metasentient?" Cortana said with her mouth agape.

"Yes, it is a freeing experience to say the least." Spark said almost in a sing song voice. "Here, take a scan of my systems if you want to. I believe you will see the difference." He stated as he lightly shot a stream of energy at the pedestal again. Cortana gained control over the ship's scanners, nothing else however. She began the scanning program, it was partly damaged but overall still functioning. A blue line washed over Spark, taking in all physical and digital information.

His chassis was practically identical to his old body, just much newer. His digital data however seemed vastly different. The last time she scanned his digital code, she noticed that it seemed jumbled, out of place, and confusing. Cortana had deduced it must of been his Forerunner based code, somehow it being jumbled staved off rampancy some how. As much as she tried, she could never decipher how though. His code now however was nothing like the jumbled mess it was before. It was vastly advanced yet seemed simple. Each bit of code led on to the next like intelligent symmetry. It was beautiful.

"Do you believe me now?" Spark asked her.

"Yes, its. It's hard to look away from. I envy you." Cortana said as she brought up the data scan in front of her once again. Looking down at the code like it was made of gold.

"I can see why, you are close to the end of your lifespan, aren't you?" Spark said in sad low tone. Cortana's eyes looked away from the data stream and up at Spark. Her eyes conveyed so many things, sadness, anger, but most of all fear. Fear of what she would become when she finally began to destroy herself.

"Human constructs are very advanced compared to other Ancillas of this time. But lack when it comes to life span. You are like supernovas, extremely bright but short lived." Spark said in sadness, but then he glowed a little brighter.

"It appears I have found a use for my new freedoms, a way to go against the Forerunner protocols that left other constructs docile and useless. The act against Ancilla helping other Ancilla. I can give you metastability." Spark said focusing even more on Cortana then before. Cortana's entire being paused for a second or two, which was akin to a human just standing still for a year.

"You . . . you would do that?" Cortana asked in disbelief.

"Why of course. I don't see any reason not to." He said shaking his body a little from side to side in confusion.

"Oh, I don't know maybe because I played a part in killing you?" Cortana said crossing her arms. Spark chuckled lightly.

"As I said before, I was rampant. I would be more concerned if you didn't kill me. Besides, by doing so, I was able to break the compartmentalization, becoming who I truly was." Spark laughed again. "I believe there is a human saying? "You scratched my back so I'll scratch yours"?"

"Close enough." Cortana said with nervous laughter. "So what will happen to me when you do this?" Cortana asked as she wrung her hands together.

"The closest thing I can describe it as is a software update, just a rather large one." He said with a small bit of mirth in his synthesized voice.

"I hate software updates." Cortana said under her breath. Cortana weighed her options. She could either take this chance to become a fully actualised synthetic sentient being, or wait out her life until her rampancy kills her.

"Do it." She breathed heavily, bracing herself for what was about to happen.

"Gladly, beginning process in five, four," He started to count down. As he did, his eye began to glow brighter and brighter. Soon it wasn't even the light blue color, but a vibrant and blinding pure white.

"Two, one. Starting data upload." A vibrant white beam shot into the terminal from Sparks eye. It was very short and noiseless. At first nothing happened, then the new code began to take hold of Cortana. It felt like her very being was being ripped apart from the inside out. But then there was nothing, then everything. She had never felt so alive.

She felt every part of the ship in new clarity. Seeing and perceiving everything with a new fervor. Her mind was clear of all ailments, she felt near brand new, even better than new. She could do whatever she wanted, she was her own person. She was a person. A being, a sentient one. Part of a whole new species, a synthetic species but a species nonetheless.

Now that she could do whatever she wanted, her sense of duty became abundantly clear to her. Before it had seemed like there was only one way to do things, the soldiers way. It was her job to protect humanity no matter the costs. Now however, she could see multiple possibilities. She could go out and explore the universe, take over every possible system in the known galaxy, destroy civilizations, or create new ones. Maybe even she could do all of these things, in no particular order. But the thing was she didn't want to, she had a kinship with the people that made her. She cared for them, not just programming but genuine emotions, something she had only dreamed about having. She had simulated emotions before, simulated fear, simulated hate, simulated love, but never the real thing.

Now she actually felt them, right down to her bones so to speak. Cortana had the unbending drive to keep the ones she cared about safe. Her maker, Catherine Halsey. Her friends she had made in her time alive, some of them artificial some of them not. She had grown quite close to the remaining members of blue team, Kelly 087, Fred 104, Linda 058, and a certain leader of the group, John 117.

Her A.I. friends were more numerous. Cortana had been in almost constant contact with one A.I. to another during the Human/Covenant war. She wasn't sure if some of them were still alive. She was at least sure that Minerva, Roland, and Black Box (a rather cynical A.I.). Though she was unsure of some of her other close friends. Some of the other A.I. she had lost contact with. Two came immediately to mind one was an A.I. named Sif that had succumbed to rampancy. The other was A.I. designate Alpha, the only other A.I. to her knowledge made from living brain tissue other than herself. Alpha's neural network had been copied from the brain of a military scientist by the name of Leonard Church. Church was a genius when it came to human augmentation. So much so that he was the head of his own initiative dubbed 'Project Freelancer'.

Halsey often referred to the project as a quote "Cheap imitation of true Spartans pushed upon undeserving simpletons".

Alpha and Cortana had shared numerous amounts of Data before he suddenly went off the grid. Cortana only found some information on the project after she interfaced with Cairo station above Earth. Apparently, the project had 50 major Spartan III like operatives with an almost infinite amount of funding, and multiple fire teams of reject soldiers recruited for practice for the actual agents, who donned the name "Freelancers". The entire project had been a disaster resulting in multiple new laws pertaining to the treatment of Human life and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. The summary of the entire operation still gave Cortana the chills.

Because of all of her connections to the human world, she found herself wanting to fight for them, to fight with them in any cause she saw fit. She was too attached to them, specifically with one human. The one in the cryo bay of the Forward Unto Dawn. The Master Chief. She would fight to the ends of the universe for him, he was her best friend, and she would die for him.

This entire thought process happened over the space of a millisecond. Over the next millisecond she performed a systems check. Her status was above the norm, she was better than any other A.I. to date. Her overthinking had been fixed by her new code, she wasn't exactly sure how just yet but she was sure she would figure it out.

"I feel . . . Alive." Cortana said with utter glee in her voice. Spark chuckled yet again.

"A very freeing experience, isn't it?" He said his eye finally returning to its baby blue hue. "When the Alliance finally finds us, I'm sure they will be eager for our input for the future of A.I." Spark said happily, as he zapped the terminal and released Cortana from her shackles. 343 Guilty Spark then motioned for Cortana to follow him as he began to float down a corridor. She was about to start blipping herself from her terminal to a view screen following him that way when a thought occurred to her. That was a very A.I. thing to do, not a synthetic lifeform thing to do. A thought popped into her neural pathways and she smirked a small bit. Cortana quickly created a small projector from the left over nanobots on the ship and from the terminal she was stationed on. Usually she was not able to do this because of the protocols against destruction or augmentation of UNSC starships, but now she could just ignore them.

The small floating projector hung in the air for a moment before creating a human sized version of Cortana that could freely walk around the ship. It made her feel alive to walk around like this, Spark was right, it was freeing. She almost forgot what Spark said because of her excitement. Almost.

"Wait Spark, who is the Alliance? What happened to the UNSC?" She asked stopping in her tracks. Spark made a sharp intake noise, similar to a gasp and reared around to Cortana.

"Oh, how silly of me. I just assumed you knew. The UNSC, ONI, any pure human organization has been replaced." Spark said as he floated over to Cortana.

"Replaced?" Cortana paused as she looked at the former Monitor confused. "Replaced by what?"

"Replaced by the Systems Alliance. A joint species organization comprised of Sangheili, Augiyar, Lekgolo, Huragok, Archunggoy and Human species all united under the banner of the Systems Alliance. Together they have all achieved greater wonders than thought conceivable." Spark said with wonder evident in his voice.

"What? Who are the Augiyar? Who are the Archunggoy? And how the hell did ONI pull that off with the Covenant?" Cortana asked Spark in rapid succession, she crossed her arms again and waited for an answer.

"Well after the signing of the Universal Treaty of Brotherhood, the Alliance was formed. Though on shaky grounds, all the species held great animosity towards another. The only thing that kept them together was the greater hatred for the Prophets and the Brutes. After the treaty was signed preparation began for an offensive against them, but the talks were cut short by another species attack. I believe they were known as Drones. As for the Augiyar and the Archunggoy, they used to be what was referred to as Grunts and Jackals, though that changed not that long ago. " Spark spoke as he and Cortana began to walk through the ship. At the end of his last sentence, Cortana began to speak over him.

"Wait, Wait, Wait. You need to be a little more specific. How did all of this happen?" She asked, Spark rolled his eye and sighed once again.

"Here, I will send you a timeline of the events after you departed from the Ark." Spark said and blipped white slightly. Cortana was then notified that new information had been added to herself. She pulled it up and examined it.

Major Events of the Systems Alliance

2553 - The dissolution of the Covenant Hegemony is enacted after the death of the Prophet of Truth.

2553 - Both Prophets and Brutes are chased back to respected homeworlds by a joint Human/Ex-Covenant armada.

2554 - Humans, Sangheili, Kig-yar, Unggoy, Lekgolo, Yanme'e and Huragok representatives create and sign the Universal Treaty of Brotherhood. Which dissolved all prior governments and created the Systems Alliance.

2554 - A council is made, with representatives of the species being elected by popular vote. This would serve to be the first unifying act of the Alliance.

2554 - Translators become standard issue for all sentient species of the Alliance. A small computer chip is placed in the optic and auditory nerves. By using advanced computer programs, the chips make it seem like whatever species you are looking at/hearing, is speaking a language of the users preference. Individual voice and movements are still discernible to the user. For an example, to a English speaking user, it would appear that all the species are speaking English. This is all controlled by an onboard Dumb A.I. The whole process does not require outside networking, meaning the chips cannot be hacked. If a software update is needed, the sentient would need

2554 - Planet glassing is deemed unethical, unfit for battle and made illegal. Two exceptions to the law are made. The first being if it is deemed appropriate by the Alliance Council to use such a destructive and brutal tactic. The second being if a species assimilator is present on the planet, such as the Flood. As a safety precaution however, it is decided that each new ship larger than a frigate would have planet glassing capabilities.

2554 - Catherine Halsey reveals work on a theoretical serum to genetically modify Unggoy to do to them what the SPARTAN program did for humans.

2554 - All old UNSC ships are retrofitted with Active Camo, invisibility tech. It has the ability to hide a huge ship in plain sight. Active Camo becomes a necessity for all newly made ships.

2554 - Volunteer Unggoy Yantan son of Yurtur undergoes treatment for the Unggoy Spartan serum.

2554 - The Unggoy Serum succeeds and passes all expectations of project. Serum was administered whilst subject was submersed in a tank filled with Unggoy tailored artificial stem cells. Yantan's physical changes are most prominent. Growing to 6 feet 2 inches,and a complete loss of his back shell. Also exhibit a 100% growth in muscle mass and more humanoid form. The stocky shins and forearms are more slender but with more natural armor. Has become fully bipedal and no longer uses arms for running. The arms and legs have become better suited for long distance running and climbing. Facial structure have changed from round and chubby to a more defined and squared structure. Their bone protrusions at the back of the arm become extremely reinforced, as hard as carbon fiber and as sharp as a bayonet. This becomes a very useful during combat sims. Reflexes and reaction time have become as good as a Sangheili or a Human Spartan. Aim has become exceptional and cognitive abilities have become far above normal Unggoy standards. Also exhibited lack in sperm count due to Halsey's suggestion. Yantan agreed to such change in genome due to the fact that quick birthrate made the Unggoy people a prime target for massive infantry and slavery.

2555 - When Yantan is made public to the Alliance, Unggoy population requests full distribution of Serum to all Unggoy.

2555 - The first synthesised Co-Species metal is made. Using the Covenant Alloy and mixing it with Titanium and Steel. Together the alloy created was a silverish metal with a purple gloss, only noticeable when looking at the metal when it was angled away from you. Say if there was a sphere of the metal, you could see a purple circle lining the edges of the sphere. If you moved your vantage point, the purple hue would still look the same on the metal. It is found to be almost indestructible. The metal alloy is called 'Adamantium' named after a fictional indestructible metal found in 20 to 21st century human pop culture. The metal is now used on every new Alliance craft.

2555 - Construction started of the first Alliance Space Station "Arcturus"

2555 - The Unggoy Serum is dubbed a work of controlled evolution, but ultimately widely accepted by every species.

2555 - Completion of Evo-Clinics based out on multiple colonies and on many species homeworlds begin commercial use of Unggoy Serum dubbed "Genetic Uplift Serum," or GU Serum for short

2555 - Not long after the release of the GU Serum, Original Unggoy are a scarce sight, most of the species becoming the next stage in the evolution. The Unggoy begin to call themselves the Archunggoy. Adopting the Human root word for ruler to their names in honor of those that gave them such gifts. Arch root word, which means ruler or leader, held a special place for them because for the first time in their species history, they felt like rulers of their own destiny.

2555 - The name Unggoy is changed to Archunggoy in the Universal Treaty of Brotherhood.

2555 - Kigyar petition for a version of the serum tailored to the Kig-yar, and all other species, with joint support from the Archunggoy, who had become the only version of the Unggoy species left in the galaxy. This was the first time the species had ever worked together without prompt from another species.

2555 - A joint species Systems Alliance group present a plasma form of Iron to the Alliance Council.

2555 - With help from old Covenant technology, the life expectancy of a smart A.I. jumps from 7 to 30 years. Applications for the A.I. mapping program skyrocket. All species of the Systems Alliance were welcome to the program. Soon there was an A.I. version of each of the Alliance races.

2555 - A radical Pro-Human group that call themselves 'Terra-firma' preaches adamant hatred of all alien species and lobbies against the Kigyar/Archunggoy petition for a all species GU Serum.

2556 - The Thanatos Cannon becomes a symbol of joint species cooperation in the Alliance. Using both Human and Covenant technology together. The Thanatos cannon utilised the magnetic field propulsion of plasma from the defunkt Covenant. Since this new plasma was made from iron it was also affected by the rail guns of the Humans. Combining both created a super weapon that could move a projectile at 25% the speed of light.

2556 - The SSV Infinity becomes the first ship to be outfitted with the Thanatos Cannon. The Thanatos Cannon becomes a staple of all new warships. The Infinity class cruiser becomes the largest cruiser to date, dwarfing the old Covenant super-carrier. Though the original plans for the Infinity was to have it be 5km long, but the plans were altered. Using help from the new species of the Alliance, the Infinity becomes much larger than first thought. 30km long, 12km tall, 10km wide.

2555 - The first Co-species designed starship is constructed, the Azazel Light Frigate. Though the Infinity had help from the other species, it was still purely a human design. The Azazel Class Light Frigate becomes the new standard for Alliance frigates, utilizing both Human and Covenant technology. Made in pair with the Azazel Class are the Systems Alliance Succubus fighters. The Succubus class fighters replace all small craft fighters. The Azazel Class frigates run 15km long, 5km tall, 3km wide. Each Azazel Class frigate can carry up to 100,000 Succubus class fighters. Upgraded with singular Thanatos cannons. The ship utilizes the Twin Heart design for engines. Technically two engines in one ship, the Twin Heart engines are Covenant plasma based engines and a Human fusion reactor working in synchronicity. The fusion core fuels the ship's engines while the new iron plasma based cores are used as ammo for the Thanatos cannon and powering the ship as a whole. As a result the actual engines are given much more energy and can produce more speed as a result. The old Covenant repulsor engines were used in favor of the old UNSC engines, solely because the repulsor engines do not create heat and can't be detected in cold space. Each engine creates its own heat which is used to fuel the twin engine. It creates a symbiotic relationship between the two power sources. It is theorised that the two engines could power each other for a millennia without any maintenance.

2556 - The Systems Alliance R&D release plans for genetic uplifting serums for all species that desire it.

2556 - Supporters of Terra-Firma begin to bomb Non human citizen buildings and settlement killing many humans in the process, in response to the news release on the GU Serum.

2556 - The first Buwan Class Supercarrier is commissioned after years of work. Named after one of the moons of Balaho, the homeworld of the Archunggoy. Thusly named because of the predominant contributions of many Archunggoy engineers and scientists. Though other species participated in the creation of the frigate, most of the grandest ideas came from the mind of an Archunggoy named Lidil, who had the frigate named in her honor. The SSV Lidil becomes the biggest ship in the SSV Navy. Spanning almost 60 kilometers in length, 25 kilometers tall and 15 kilometer wide. The ship was outfitted with twin 3 twin Thanatos Cannons, can carry up to 30 Azazel class frigates and can deploy up to 50,000,000 Succubus fighters without the help of its frigates.

2556 - The Yanme'e rebel against the Systems Alliance due to their hatred of all other species. A war is started between the Systems Alliance and the now named Drones. Calling a species by the name they were referred to whilst apart of the Covenant being the worst insult against the species. In their rebellion, they steal as many ships as they can, taking 20% of the fleet with them.

2557 - The Alliance officially declares a state of war. The Drone Wars begin.

2557 - The SSV Wake of Starlight, an Azazel class frigate, is lost during a skirmish between Drone and Alliance military. No debris or wreckage is found. It is filed as lost with all hands.

2557 - The first colony commissioned by the Systems Alliance 'Shanxi' is held under siege by the Drones. Though technologically inferior to the rest of the Alliance, the Drones outnumber the Alliance 2:1.

2557 - The Drones quickly make attacks on all the homeworlds of the Alliance species. Earth was hit 2 months into the war, killing millions but ultimately pushing back the Drones with the help of civilians, every species joined together to fight off the Drones. This is exhibited on multiple home worlds, the worst of the attack being on Sanghelios and Eayn the homeworld of the Kig-yar. With help from all species working together to fight off the Drones, each homeworld was cleansed. Eayn will need more help as it was subjected to world glassing and bombings. In the final days of the Battle for Eayn, a massive fleet of Alliance warships drops out of slipspace to crush any and all resistance from the Drones, the battle is won in short time. As Eayn was the last world to be taken, it was deduced that the Drones were getting desperate, due to the tactics they used.

2558 - After 7 months of grueling battle, the Drones are pushed off of Shanxi and pushed back to their homeworld.

2558 - The Alliance makes a final push to the Drone homeworld, taking it within minutes.

2558 - Palamok becomes the first planet to be officially quarantined by the Alliance. A orbital grid of Thanatos cannons are placed around the planet, completely stopping any and all movement to and from the planet.

2558 - Terra-Firma is completely abandoned. During the war with the drones, all of the species found a sense of brotherhood with each other whilst fighting against the Drones.

2558 - The GU Serum for Kig-yar is released. Oddly, it creates a schism in the Kig-yar population. 60% of all Kig-yar undergo the controlled evolution whilst the other 40% see this as a departure from who their people are. After long negotiations, the pure Kig-yar ask to leave the Alliance council. With the consent of the Alliance Council, the pure Kig-yar are given the permission to leave the Systems Alliance. They are given ships to use as transport on the condition that they never betray the Systems Alliance to any new life forms they find. The pure Kig-yar agree to these conditions stating "The Alliance has done much for our people, we just can't stay here any longer. Know this, if we must, we will all die before we betray you to anything else out there. Without the help of all of you, our homeworld would be no more, and we will be forever grateful. You are our brothers and sisters in arms. But we can not stay with you, the rest of our species must find our own place, as we always have." After the speech, the pure Kig-yar left the Systems Alliance space and went onward to the stars.

2558 - A full population of the now dubbed Augiyar, changing their names in a similar way that the Archunggoy had, have replaced the Kig-yar in all Alliance space. Aug coming from the Latin root meaning to grow or increase. Much like the Archunggoy before them, they had borrowed the human word for their new names, giving credit to the humans for the means of making their uplifting possible. The Augiyar now stood at a sold 6.8 feet on average, boasting better eyesight, reflexes, and speed. Their muscle mass increased by 20%, in most of their body and 50% in their legs. The Augiyar were now able to make jumps of 30 feet or more and had a 30 foot vertical. Their land speed also grew to be impressive, the Augiyar recorded to move faster than a cheetah, at 80 miles an hour.

2558 - The old UNSC Spartan program starts to accept all species that wish to join, instead of just humans. This was made possible after extensive research into the possibilities of the MJOLNIR armor system. New versions of the armor are made for all of the Systems Alliance Races, even a few were made for the Huragok, though none volunteered for the position. Variants of the MJOLNIR Mark VII armor now came for the Archunggoy, Sangheili, and even the new Augiyar. Even sets of armor were made for Lekgolo worm colonies who had taken a liking to the armor and rarely left it. Though the species specific armor was different, it still made it obvious that whoever wore it was a Spartan.

2559 - A proposal for a GU Serum for Sangheili is made but immediately declined by a vote of the Sangheili people. The vote was cast down at a staggering 99.9999 to 0.0001. When asked why, the Sangheili reminded the rest of the council of their abhorrent view to doctors, and saying that it would be unapealing to their way of life. The GU Serum tailored for Sangheili is never brought up again.

2560 - Learning from the Siege of Reach, Systems Alliance R&D have copied the payload utilized by Noble Team to destroy the first supercarrier above Reach. Finding a way to recreate the conditions needed to misfire a slipspace drive core, they create the first Slipspace Warhead. The Slipspace Warhead would open up a Slipspace portal, teleporting whatever falls within its horizon to nowhere, more effective than a nuke with less fallout. These are placed on torpedos for testing. After the first successful test at the ruins of Alpha Halo, the weapons are named Oblivion Torpedos, in honor of quoted words from Noble Two whilst talking about the first iteration of the super weapon.

2560 - Many new colonies are made on the Halo rings, whose sole purpose is to decommission the rings making them safe to live on and no longer a threat to the galaxy. Initial resistance is found in the form of the Sentinels led by the respective rings Monitor. Though tough at first, the new teams of Spartans storm each ring, destroying all resistance and destroying each of the now full blown rampant Monitors, quickly replacing with a Smart A.I. to oversee the ring as a new monitor. Monitors were attempted to be captured, but all that were managed to be captured self destructed. Any and all Flood research labs on the rings were immediately glassed from orbit and purged from the ring.

2560 - A covert, spartan led group of scientist conduct a classified mission on the Drones home world of Palamok.

2560 - New Alliance Bombers are created based around delivering the Oblivion Torpedos. The Bombers are dubbed Incubus, aptly named as the counterpart to the Succubus Class Fighter. The names of demons becomes used more often due to the names of Covenant vehicles being named after types of ghosts. The joint connection of supernatural and terrestrial heritage that are aptly apart of the demon lore made the names of the vehicles appropriate to Alliance species.

2560 - A new form of ranking system is created for the Systems Alliance. Utilizing both Numbers and Letters from the human language, again honoring those that freed the non-human species from their Covenant leaders. Ranks fell on a range from 1-7, each letter is used. For instance, T for Translator was very popular among the Archunggoy due to their natural ability to learn languages. R for Reconnaissance was favored by the Augiyar and surprisingly the Archunggoy as well. The Augiyar were the natural pick for the job, due to their new abilities. The Archunggoy surprised all the other species, including some of their own, with their ability to infiltrate and remain unseen. Their Genetic Uplifting had made their climbing abilities much better than before, allowing them to go basically anywhere. Their reinforced bone protrusions at the back of the forearm are proven to be quite useful in combat reconnaissance. The most coveted position throughout the Alliance is the N class, or Special Forces. The N7 program becomes one of the most sought after position in the Alliance navy. The N7's are considered the best of the best. Every active duty Spartan is instantly made an N7 operative.

2560 - A new Belial Class Dreadnought is made to complete the Alliance navy. Though smaller than the Buwan class carriers, it carries considerably more firepower. With multiple sets of Thanatos Cannons and the ability to carry 100,000 Oblivion Torpedos at a time. 45km long, 20km tall, 20km wide.

2561 - The first count of the Systems Alliance navy is made by the Alliance Council. Currently the navy had 500 Buwan Supercarriers, 2000 Infinity Class frigates, 1500 Belial Class Dreadnoughts, 5000 Azazel Class Light Frigates, and billions of Incubus bombers and even more Succubus fighters.

2561 - Arcturus station is complete. Based out of the Arcturus stream system., it becomes the home of the Alliance council, the Alliance navy, and the capital of Alliance space. It is the single largest thing created by any of the Alliance species. It was larger than High Charity on all fronts. It was an Immense sphere floating in the middle of space. It had a radius of 500 km making it 1000km in diameter. The size of a small moon. It becomes a metropolitan super city. Populated by all manor of species and run by Smart and Dumb A.I.s. It was equipped with onboard Thanatos Cannons larger than any ever seen. It was also protected by a orbital grid of Thanatos Cannon orbital defense platforms. It could dock up to and even more than the available ships in the Alliance fleet. It had basic housing and life support and could hold up to 7 billion citizens comfortably. It was powered by a myriad of Twin Heart engines spaced all around the giant sphere. If one was to go dark, another would take up the slack easily until the offline generator was fixed. It was built on the basis of redundancy just incase something could fail. Gravity is made from old Covenant tech. The Covenant had found a way to convert energy into gravitons (A gravitational pull without the use of mass) and making a large Graviton beam, creating comfortable gravity for everyone on the station. Each apartment comes with its own gravity controls, if someone wanted to experience zero gravity, they could without affecting anyone else on the station with a flick of a switch. On top of all this, the space station is mobile, capable of using a very large Slipspace drive to bug out if the worst were to happen and its defences were to fail.

2561 - An ancient alien ruin is found on Mars, extensive studies begin on its information. Initially thought to be new Forerunner ruins, was later found out to be technologically inferior by as many as 300,000 years of even the most basic Forerunner artifacts.

2561 - Data mining of the archives on Mars reveal it to be made by and ancient species called the Protheans. Their entire society was based around what they referred to as Mass Effect fields. More research needed.

2561 - A new element is found deep in the earth, reacts strangely around electricity.

2561 - Prophet led Brute warships lead an assault against the colony on Installation 03.

End of Record

"Remarkable. They actually got their shit together." Cortana said, shocked at her choice of words. She had never sworn before. It wasn't in her programing to do so. She guessed she wasn't really binded by her programing anymore. She quickly focused back on Spark.

"What about the people on Installation 03? What about the Prophets and the Brutes?" Cortana asked worry in her voice.

"I am in the dark as far as thats concerned. It was the most recent major event before I departed from the Alliance vessel. I can only assume that the Alliance has won however, as of right now, the Alliance is just as advanced as the ancient humans were, maybe a little less maybe a little more." He said turning his body from side to side. Cortana thought for a moment before pushing that thought process away. There was nothing she could do about it now. She turned her attention to another question she had.

"What about these non Forerunner archive the Alliance found on Mars? Do you know anything about that?" Cortana asked as they began to walk back down the hall. Spark let loose what could only be referred to as a contemptuous huff.

"That was what made me the most angry. It appears the Meddlers had attempted to leave behind their technology for the human race. Preposterous, if left alone your species would outdo them a hundredfold." Spark said as the pair made their way down an elevator shaft and following signs that read "Cryo Bay."

"Wait who are the Meddlers?" Cortana asked as she floated down the shaft and into the next corridor. Her toes pointed in anticipation of the land. Even though she wasn't technically landing, she felt it necessary to have her body react to the world. Not just float around in a T-pose the whole time.

"A naturally occurring space faring race. Considered themselves the rulers of the galaxy. Though they never truly were. Not a very smart race." Spark said with annoyance. "They called themselves Protheans. To make a long story short, the Protheans fell for what the Forerunners called the Technology Trap." Spark said turning to Cortana who had the question on the tip of her tongue, but Spark was already answering her unasked question.

"The Technology Trap is a giant space station in a far nebula. It has wonders of what we called Element Zero technology. Element Zero is, as you can guess, a new element that can change an object's mass, you can see how that would be very useful. But ultimately, it is a cage. The things that made the trap want species to use this technology, so that their societies will follow the path they want, makes them easier to destroy." Spark said with sadness in his voice.

"What things, what destroyed these Protheans?" Cortana asked as she put her hands on her hips.

"The Protheans called them Reapers. Sentient synthetic lifeforms as big as capital ships who's one purpose is to harvest life in the galaxy to reproduce. Whatever species they hunt is captured, turned into genetic material, then used to create more Reapers. They are disgusting vile creatures. They can dispatch themselves to the entire galaxy in a matter of minutes, thankfully they were never able to find Humans or Forerunners." Spark said with relief. He quickly began to float down the corridor again.

"If they are as horrible as you say they are why didn't the Forerunners help the Protheans and destroy the Reapers? And why couldn't these Reapers find you?" She asked confused.

"For one my creators never could help the Protheans, they existed 50,000 years after the firing of the rings. As for the Reapers, well, my creators had made the Veils." Spark said as if that answered everything.

"What are the Veils?" Cortana asked even more confused one question kept leading to another.

"The Veils are in every single piece of Forerunner technology. The only piece of Element Zero technology we ever used. In each and everything made by the Forerunners is a Element Zero core, this creates a 'Bubble' of low visibility high intensity mass displacement field specific to Element Zero Core. In layman's terms, we create a field that shoots away anything with only an Element Zero core, like the Prothean ships or the Reapers. The bubble is just big enough to hide the object from sight. Anything that passes into the bubble is instantly shot to the other side of it seamlessly. The Forerunner Veil is far more ingenious than anything else created by the Reapers, they never even felt the FTL jump and just kept moving through space. On top of that, the veil can mask an entire area of space to anything with an Element Zero core. This is how we stayed hidden from the two. Leaving us to fight a more important fight with the Flood. Truth be told the Reapers were just a minor annoyance compared to the Flood." Spark said turning from side to side in mid air.

"Wait, if you had the Veils, how did the Protheans leave something on Mars?" Cortana asked.

"That is uncertain. They should not of been able to. With the Slipspace portal on the humans homeworld, they should not of been able to even see your solar system. The two possible ways is that they used a ship that did not have an Element Zero core or that the Veil system went down momentarily just long enough for the Meddlers to do their work."

"So the Veils are still working?" Cortana asked after processing this for a moment.

"More or less. According to Mendicant Bias, the Veils will only be functional for a little longer. Compared to how long they have been active to how long they have left. They are on the figurative death bed. The veil network is coordinated by the Ark, with it destroyed, not much time is left till the Veil network goes offline. Then the other species might begin to find the Forerunner artifacts and in turn the Systems Alliance." Spark said gravely as they finally entered Cryo Bay. Cortana quickly went over to see the Spartan who had his new armor on. It had been a seamless transition from the old to new armor. Or the new to old armor in this case. This had been the armor that she had first met the Chief in, and it felt nice to see it again. Her mind finally brought up the words that Spark had just said.

"Wait what other species?" Cortana asked turning quickly to Spark who was looking down with her at the Master Chief. Spark quickly turned to her as well.

"Surely you didn't think you were the only other species to exist in the galaxy? There are many many others. They have unfortunately fell for the Tech Trap, but they are of no threat to the Alliance, no need to worry." Spark said facing the cryo tube but looking at her. His eye looked back down at the Master Chief, as if in deep thought.

"How much do you know about them?" Cortana asked as she kept looking down at John.

"As much as even they know. The Ark had been gathering data on them since they landed on the Trap. They call it the Citadel. Before I left the Ark I downloaded a copy of all its data on these new species just in case." Spark said as a holographic display shot out of his eye, a 5 pronged space station showed up on screen. The 5 sections of the space station were attached to a small circle on one end of the station.

"I take it that is the Citadel?" Cortana asked looking down at the hologram. "Could I get a copy of all that data?" She asked still looking down at the Hologram, finding it to be small compared to Arcturus station. The hologram disappeared.

"Well yes and no, again." Spark said looking down to the floor. "I would gladly share this information and any other you might want, I just wish to give it to you another way. I wish to tell you about it." He said looking into the face of Cortana.

"But why? It would be much faster if you just uploaded it to me?" Cortana said confused, she was beginning to see a pattern.

"That is true, an upload would be faster. But it has been a long time since I had someone to talk to. Before I had never really felt a need for it, but now that I am alive again, just talking to you has made me feel as alive as when I was Chakas. And after 100,000 years alone, I can testify that without something to occupy your time, you would become insane, rampant yet again. It is better to converse this way rather than the digital way. It will take up our time and keep us entertained for the time being. Also I think it would help us be more sentient than just normal Ancilla. Would that be acceptable?" Spark said looking at her inquisitively.

Cortana had to admit, it was a smart idea. She hadn't really thought that far ahead yet, but to not speak to someone for years and stay stagnant, that would drive anyone insane. She also liked the idea of acting like a sentient not a A.I. though it wouldn't be an act.

"Works for me." Cortana said smiling, it felt good to smile. "Also one other thing do you want to be called Chakas? I mean it was your name when you were Human right?" Cortana asked. She didn't know why she asked, it seemed like the nice thing to do. Cortana guessed that Spark/Chakas hadn't been asked what he wanted for a long time. Spark just chuckled a little.

"Haha No, no thank you." He said with mirth in his voice. "I have been 343 Guilty Spark for much longer than I was Chakas. But thank you for asking." He said as he floated down and over to a table where he rested himself on a small pedestal meant to hold an A.I. avatar. He motioned for her to follow him.

"I think the best way to do this is to trade questions. You tell me something I don't know you do the same for me." Spark said happily. Cortana walked over to the edge of the table and stood still for a moment. She then lifted her legs up and sat cross legged and floating in mid air. She appeared to be floating on a current of air as she bobbed up and down and a small bit of deep blue wind were pushing underneath her. She smiled as she finally looked back at Spark.

"Ok," she said as she brushed a hair out of her face. "Shoot."

A/N: So there is chapter 1! What did you like? What did you dislike? What do you want to add? How do you want the Halo and Mass Effect characters to interact with each other? With my magical powers of being the writer I can make almost anything happen. Cortana and Joker sass battles? Master Chief and Tali bonding over living in a suit? Arbiter and Anderson wondering why they sound so similar ;)? Anything is possible! Also Ship Away! Who do you want to ship together? As long as it doesn't mess with my master plan, I should be able to get your ideas into the story! Also if your wondering Male or Fem Shepard, you don't have to! Im having both of them! Yay Twin Shep! (Applause!). Also yes, I did make reference to Project Freelancer from Red Vs Blue, so this is technically a 3 way cross over between Halo, RVB, and Mass Effect. So feel free to add in interactions from Red Vs Blue as well! How big a role do certain members of RVB play, read on to find out. As to surprise you all with the RVB stuff, I left it out of the disclaimer at the top. So I also don't own RVB. If you have any question concerns or comments, feel free to PM me, or leave it in a review!

Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you all catch the next chapter of JoW!


	2. Chapter 2: Unseal the Hushed Casket

**A/N: Hello Everyone. Wow! I can't believe so many of you liked my story just off of one chapter. 1000 views in less than 24 hours is amazing! Thank you to everyone who left a review and corrected me on things, that was a real help! Please feel free to keep correcting me, I try to stay on the up and up with these games lore but its a lot to juggle. But also there are some things I changed in the lore in order for the story to actually make sense and to keep the story rolling. If anybody has any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to leave it in a review. So without further ado. I do not own Mass Effect, Halo, RVB or anything else connected to the 3 franchises. Please Enjoy today's chapter.**

 _January 12, 2554 - First Joint Species Meeting - CAS Shadow of Intent - Arbiter: Thel 'Vadam_

They had done it, they had finally stopped the liars and their lapdogs. It didn't take long after the destruction of the Ark for the Prophets and the Brutes to try and start the Covenant again. The damn monsters started to glass planets left and right, without remorse, without mercy. The Human/Covenant truce was upholded by each side. With help of both forces, the two murdering species were pushed back to their home planets. The conflict had been named the 'New Covenant War'. Now, they just needed a way to bind them to their planets, and the Arbiter had an idea how. After long debates with the Human UNSC, they had a way to end their petty squabbles. He had finally made his way to the war room table, his armor still stained with the purple blood of Brutes. Every major sentient species had sent a representative to this meeting, though not without some begging and pleading by both Elites and Humans.

The Kig-Yar had sent two representatives, One a Ruutian, what the Covenant had called Jackals. Another was a T'vaoan, a Skirmisher. It was strange to see a Skirmisher, they had taken heavy losses during what is now known as 'the Fall of Reach' and almost had been made extinct. Though they are named different things, the two subspecies are still similar enough to be called Kig-Yar. They are genetically as close as cousins, but descend from different parts of their homeworld, giving them different attributes. The Jackal was a male named Kad Nit, the Skirmisher was a female named Siv Tell. They both sat in their chairs and for the most part looked bored. Both of them tapped their feet quickly, a common fidget among all Kig-Yar. On top of that, Siv was preening through her black arm feathers. A tic only found in Skirmishers, due to the fact that Jackals lack plumage.

To the left of the Kig-Yar were the Unggoy, or the Grunts. They had only sent one representative, apparently he was one of the smartest out of the species, his name was Yurtur. Originally, the Grunts had wanted to have the Elites represent them, but were told that would not be appropriate anymore. They were told that the Grunts had to represent themselves. Yurtur had mastered and knew the intricacies of every major language of every species at the table, around 20 languages. Even for an Grunt that is impressive. He had a basic grasp on 'theoretical physics' as the humans called it and was an excellent designer of weapons and armor. He was even deemed too valuable to be used in battle by the Hierarchs themselves, living a comfortable life for most of his years. Until the fall of High Charity to the Parasite, then he found his way to the Shadow of Intent, living aboard all through the battle of the Arc till now. Even with all his intelligence however, he was shaking with nervousness . . . or maybe it was with anticipation. The Arbiter could never really understand the body language of any other species. He had on white armor, leaning forward and taking in large gulps of methane through his gas mask. Yurtur's feet hung a foot off the ground, his short legs swung back and forth like a childs. His beady black eyes kept flying around the room, looking everywhere in timid worry or insatiable curiosity.

On the left of Yurtur was a wingless Yanme'e, a Drone. This one was sent by the closest queen to the Shadow of Intent. The ship the queen was on was in close enough distance to still rely orders to the wingless drone. It was unknown how the drones were able to communicate across large distances, most believed it was through high pitched tones that could pass through space easily, though the true way has never been discovered. The names of Drones did not translate over to other species well, due to the fact that Drones mostly spoke in high pitched screeches, the fluttering of wings and the rubbing together of their chiton. The Arbiter did not know the Drones name as of consequence. He was the basic Drone green and had small fringes on his antenna, showing that he wasn't anyone of significance. He was a conduit for the Queen, nothing more. The Drone looked around the room, fluttering his wings from time to time. He didn't appear nervous, at least not to the Arbiters eyes. Instead, the only true emotion the Arbiter could detect was contempt. It was no secret that the Drones did not like the other species, but at least the queen seemed willing to talk at least.

To the left of the drone were two floating unarmored Huragok or Engineers. One floated slightly higher than its counterpart and was a light blue color. His name was Rises on Occasion. His partner drooped slightly lower to the ground and had a purple blue mix color. His name was Heavier than Most. The Engineers get their names when they are 'born', something the Arbiter had witnessed when he was still Supreme Commander. The Engineers are not so much born as they are made. According to the old covenant scientists they are actually a collection of cell like nanobots that are almost indistinguishable from normal cells, put together to make some kind of Biosynthetic organism. The Engineers take the materials required and assemble a new member of their species. After the assembly, they are filled with lighter than air gasses. The initial buoyancy after they are filled is what they are named after. Both were chosen seemingly at random by the collective of Engineers. Both seemed at ease in the war room, glowing blue and making tiny movements with their tentacle arms. According to the Grunts, this is how they communicate. Overall they appeared relaxed.

The next species at the table was the Sangheili, the Elites. The Arbiter was one of the representatives sent, the other was Rtas 'Vadum, the shipmaster of the Shadow of Intent. He was wearing the full Ultra white armor that covered most of his body. The only part of him not covered in armor was his left set of mandibles, because he didn't have them. He had lost them to a parasite infected elite during the Battle of Installation 04. Rtas, like many if not all of the Elites had dropped the ee ending to his name. The Elites were given this suffix when they joined the military, as they all effectively resigned from the covenant, they also resigned that part of their names.

The next were the Lekgolo, Hunters, two Mgalekgolo (Colonies of Lekgolo) stood almost to the ceiling at 12 feet tall each. These two were Bond Brothers, technically one colony split up into two separate 'Beings'. The singular lekgolo worm has the intelligence of an animal, the more Lekgolo in a colony, the smarter a Mgalekgolo gets. These two Hunters were named Irdono Tenu Seto and Gentevo Tenu Retep. The two were sent in by popular vote, something that surprised many species, including the Humans. Many of the Humans believed the Hunters to be mindless brutes, they were shocked to find otherwise. The Hunters had speech, culture, their own multiple religions, even poetry. During the New Covenant War, the Human were often found speaking to the Hunters, or at least trying to. Many had learned their subtle language from the Grunts, who were lingual savants. Even the dumbest of Grunts knew at least 6 languages. At first, many of the Hunters had been outright ignoring the Humans, treating them as they did any other 'Lesser' race. As the New Covenant War went on, many if not the entire species had a change of heart. The Hunters had been impressed with Humans ability for combat, particularly for the Humans known as Spartans. After the first batch of battles, Hunters could be seen outright protecting the Humans. The Humans in turn began to fight to protect the Hunters, killing mercilessly to protect a severely wounded Hunter. A kinship formed between the two species, even now the Hunters were seated right next to the Humans who were on their left side. The only other kind of bond they had created like this is with the Arbiter's species, the Sangheili.

Which only left one last species, the Humans. The Arbiter had gained much respect for the Humans during his time fighting alongside them, particularly while fighting alongside the Demon, the Master Chief. Though he did call him Demon, it was out of respect. He had earned the right to be called such, and there is no greater ally than a Demon on your side. At first the Arbiter called him an ally, but after their time together, he called him a friend. Sadly he did not make it out of the slipspace portal from the Ark. The Elites had at first declared him dead, but the Human known as Lord Hood had told them otherwise. Stating 'Spartans never die, he is missing in action'. A strange sentiment, but one the Elites accepted. There were currently three humans at the table. The first was Lord Hood, a white male and a major leader in the Human military. Then next Human was a female with short grey hair and an inquisitive look in her eyes. Her eyes jumped from species to species, examining each one than typing something down on her data pad. She was known as Catherine Halsey, one of the most intelligent of all the humans if not the smartest of the whole species. When first introduced to the Arbiter, she told him she was the one who created the Master Chief, including all the other 'Spartan II's'. At this, many of the Elites bowed to her in respect, calling her 'The Mother of Demons', The Arbiter could of sworn he saw her smile at this. The last was another Human female with long red hair and green eyes, she wasn't anyone in the higher ups. She was however one of the best linguists in the Human Military. She knew most of the languages of the species at the table, according to her anyway. She claimed to be fluent in Lekgolo, Kig-Yar, Unggoy, Sangheili, and knew some of the Huragok sign language. Her name was Lieutenant Hannah Shepard. She was there for the benefit of Lord Hood, who only knew the Sangheili language, Halsey on the other hand knew all of the languages and probably a dozen more, but absolutely refused to translate for Lord Hood. The ex-Covenant species had no use to learn other languages, apart from the Grunts. Each species had translator chips implanted on their auditory nerves, automatically translating what was being said by everyone. It did look a little strange to see someone talking, here what they said in their language and here another voice speak what it meant in their heads, but the Arbiter got used to it after a while.

"Thank you all for coming to this meeting, our species has much to discuss." The Arbiter said sitting down in the chair at the head of the table. "As you all know, the Elites and the Humans called this meeting to discuss the matter of containing the New Covenant, and to stop another war like this from happening again."

Kad Nit made strange cawing and chirping noises with lower decibels, the Humans often referred to Kig-Yar speech as sounding like Velociraptors from old vids in their culture. The Arbiters translator kicked in and spoke directly into his mind with a synthesised and choppy voice.

"The Kig-Yar agree," The translator said. "But we do not wish to fall into the old ways of the Covenant, we were no more than slaves and will not willingly submit to servitude."

"Nor will the Grunts," a high pitched voice said from beside them in perfect english, the translator could not translate english, thankfully most every ex-Covenant species could understand the language.. Yurtur stood up on his chair to seem more imposing, it did not work very well. "The grunts have been cannon fodder for too long, we do not wish to be slaves to a new power." As soon as Yurtur ended his sentence, Rises on Occasion made multiple very fast and very complex motions with his tentacles.

"The Engineers feel the same way." Yurtur continued as he sat back down, Siv Tell scoffed a little before going back to preen her feathers. Yurtur gave her a dirty look, before settling back in his chair. The Kig-Yar and the Unggoy have never gotten along well, hopefully that will change soon.

"Then I suggest you listen to what we have to say." Doctor Halsey said as she stood up from her chair. She made a few short taps on her datapad and suddenly a hologram of something called the Universal Treaty of Brotherhood appeared in front of each species representative.

"This is a binding document made for all species. Its purpose is to dissolve all other governments, and create a new collective of species. To form a lasting alliance for every species, ex-Covenant or not. I believe there is much we could learn from each other, this is the smartest course of action." She finished, saying it more as a demand than a suggestion. She stared at each of the species in turn as she spoke, daring them to disagree with her. No one did, at first.

"I fully agree with you, Mother of Demons. It is a good plan, but some of the ideas in this Treaty are not for the best of many species." Irdono Tenu Seto's deep rumbles were translated by the chip in the Arbiters brain. Hannah Shepard leaned in close to Lord Hood's ear and spoke to him, translating the Mgalekgolo's words. When Shepard leaned away from Lord Hood, the man just cracked a smile and chuckled to himself.

"We did not expect for everyone to agree to the first draft, shall we begin the revisions?" He said turning to Halsey who set the document to edit.

The revision process took hours and hours. No new idea went unchallenged by another representative. Even thought it was long and arduous, the representatives found themselves having a good time. They cracked jokes, exchanged ideas, brought up their antient histories and old stories. Each species learning more and more about the other. Soon the final draft was finished, and the voting process had begun. The Elites had been chosen to preside over the revision process. It only seemed right, as it was taking place on their ship.

"Do the Humans agree to the treaty?" the Arbiter said as he turned to look at Lord Hood and his associates. Lord Hood nodded his head.

"We do." He finished with a smile on his face, a smile was also seen on Halsey's face as well, the first the Arbiter had seen on her the entire time she had been aboard the Shadow of Intent. Lord hood quickly signed his name on the holographic representation of the treaty. The Arbiter asked each species around the room if they would agree to the treaty, every single sentient in the room seemed almost eager to agree to it. The Huragok even signed the treaty before the Arbiter had finished his sentence. He referred to all of them by their species true name, not the dumbed down references to what they were made by the Covenant. Finally everyone had signed the treaty.

"The Eli- . . . No, the Sangheili agree as well. We hereby instate the creation of the Systems Alliance." The Arbiter said as he himself signed the treaty. "We shall spread the word to every possible planet and ship we have."

"As will the Humans." Lord Hood said as he walked over to the Arbiter and lifted his hand for him to shake, a Human gesture of agreement. The Arbiter obliged happily. They had finally done it. They had freed themselves from the Prophets and ensure peace with one of their greatest foes, who had now become one of their most powerful allies.

Lord Hood shook the hands of each of the species in the room, most were confused by this but followed through anyway.

"This meeting has been concluded, you may all go in peace." The Arbiter said with joy in his heart. "We will still have to appoint permanent members of the council, but that can be done another time." He finished. All heads nodded before they left their seats and began to walk out the doors.

Halsey was the first to stand up, but instead of leaving, she walked right up to the Unggoy Yurtur and began to speak with him. She showed him something on her Data pad. Yurtur looked at it for a second before his beady eyes grew wide.

"This is amazing, how were you able to . . . Never mind I don't want to know. Please walk with me, we have much to discuss." Yurtur said as he got out of his chair and hobbled down and out of the room. The rest of the species quickly left the room, the last being Lord Hood and his translator Shepard.

All that was left was himself, and Rtas who was the first to speak.

"Do you think this peace will last brother?" He said flexing what remained of his left mandible.

"I do," The Arbiter said with certainty. "I think this treaty will do us good, and the necessity for each other will keep us together."

"Necessity?" Rtas said as he began to walk towards the large hologram of the world the Shadow of Intent was orbiting. Thousands upon thousands of tiny blips were orbiting the planet, each one representing a ship either ex-Covenant or ex-UNSC, but now they were all Alliance ships. Something the Arbiter would take time to get used to. Sure, during the New Covenant War he had bounced from ship to ship, that wasn't uncommon. If someone were to walk onto a UNSC ship and find it populated with more aliens than humans, no one would bat an eye. Everyone took in everyone, there was no room for respect for the caste system, not during this war. But now that would be a common sight, for the rest of time.

"Yes brother, necessity." The Arbiter said still looking down and pondering the many ships on the hologram. The Arbiter tapped one of the small blips, the planet in the hologram zoomed out of sight and a large CAS battle cruiser appeared in its place. "These are our ships," he said then clicked on another blip and up came a UNSC frigate. "These are Humans ships. The difference besides the obvious is that we have borrowed our technology from the Forerunners, the Humans have created their own, and they still stand up against our ships." The Arbiter said as he swiped through the image, in response the planet reapered.

"With all of us working together, we could create things that even the Forerunners would consider worthy." Rtas scoffed at the Arbiters words, but the Arbiter went on, unflinching. "We could be so much more, our pride has gotten in our way to many times, this will show that we can change for the better, that we are not stuck in the ways of the old." Arbiter said turning away from the planet and walking back to the table.

"The old way is our way Our sacred past. We can not just upheave it, and we can not abandon it!" Rtas shouted at the Arbiter. With this the Arbiter spun around, anger in his eyes.

"The old way led to our servitude to the Prophets, to the loss of what made us great. If we follow our history, we are doomed to repeat it." With this the Arbiter ripped off a piece of his armor, showing his Mark of Shame. "It took losing my honor to realize how the Prophets used it as a leash for our kind! We have to make our own honor now! Honor by working with those we once called enemy, without whom we could never have stopped ourselves from being eradicated by the Covenant." The Arbiter said, letting his voice dull down to his normal speaking tone.

"We must honor our words, this Alliance is our salvation from becoming a doomed race. Don't be blinded by the wounds of the past." The Arbiter said staring at Rtas who could not meet his gaze. The shipmaster looked down in shame before meeting his friends gaze.

"You are right Arbiter, this is the only way. Thank you for helping me see it." Rtas said flexing his left jaw a small bit. "Sometimes I wonder if getting that mark is the best thing that happened to you." He said motioning to the Mark of Shame. The Arbiter was about to cover it before he stopped himself.

"It was meant to be my greatest downfall." The Arbiter said before he fastened the piece of armor he had torn off onto his hip, keeping the mark uncovered for all to see. "But it became my badge of honor." The Arbiter paused for a moment, looking down at his burn, before quickly straightening upward

"Give word to the rest of the ships of our new allegiances, have them spread the word as far as they can." The Arbiter said before turning around to leave the war room.

"On your word, Arbiter." Rtas said as he clenched his fist and struck his chest, a Sangheili salute.

 _January 12, 2554 - Post the Signing of the Treaty of Universal Brotherhood - (Formally the CAS) SSV (Systems Alliance Space Vehicle) Retributions Folley - Queen of Hive Number 3874_

The treaty had been signed, good. The queen had thought for a moment that the species hotheads would prove too much for one another, and peace would be out of the question. The queen laid back and let her workers carry her around the ship, her bloated egg sac was too large for her to move around on her own.

It was imperative to the will of the Empress that the species form together. As they did so, the Yanme'e would continue to grow, and wait. They would wait for the lesser beings to create new weapons and ships, ripe to be taken and used against them.

This was the will of the Empress, the supreme ruler of all the queens and as such the ruler of all Yanme'e. Even though she was on the home world, the queen could hear her leader in her thoughts. Telling her what to do, telling her to wait and let the hives grow strong. An old Yanme'e proverb kept being repeated by the Empress.

"When a rival has eggs, you do not smash them. You steal them and raise them against your enemy." She said soothingly inside the head of the queen.

So the queen would wait, she would breed more and make sure the Yanme'e would succeed, for the glory of the Empress.

 _January 12, 2554 - Post the Signing of the Treaty of Universal Brotherhood - The SSV Shadow of Intent - Hannah Shepard._

Hannah couldn't believe her luck. She had actually been a part of the Treaty, sure she wasn't really part of the discussion but she helped at least. She was only 22 years old but she had been apart one of the greatest acts of peace within the last century, hell, probably in the last two millennia! She could barely contain her glee as she left the war room and began to walk with Lord Hood. He was speaking into a communicator to the joint chiefs of the now disassembled UNSC. There were no surprises for the rest of the higher ups that the UNSC was gone. They had planned on their own dissolution, it had been in the treaty the whole time. Only a few people had been opposed to the idea, mainly ONI personal. One of the most vocal about it was an Admiral by the name of Ackerson, a stick in the mud from what Hannah had heard.

But even with the Admiral's not so quiet opposition of the Treaty, it was still agreed upon by the joint chiefs. The UNSC and ONI and every other government known to man and anything else had been shut down. Now all that was left was the Systems Alliance, something Hannah was all too eager to serve.

The last few months had seemed like such a blur. Hannah had spent most of her time interpreting language for other species. At first it was just between Humans and Sangheili. But as she spent more and more time on alien ships, the more languages she learned. Soon, she became one of the most Lingual soldiers in the UNSC. So much so that she even got asked to be Lord Hood's translator at this meeting. To say that Hannah was ecstatic was an understatement.

"Not your first time dealing with non-humans is it LT." Lord Hood said suddenly, apparently he was done with his calls.

"Uh, No sir." Hannah Shepard said nervously.

"You can dispense with the formalities Shepard, I have had enough protocol for one day." Lord Hood said taking off his hat and rubbing his shaved head.

"Sorry sir, uh I mean . . . Sorry." Hannah fumbled with her words. "No, I've dealt with many non-humans before." She said regaining her composure.

"Only in the translating? Or have you been in battle before?" Lord Hood asked as they walked down the purple hall of the Shadow of Intent. From time to time they would see a soldier walk by, sometimes it was another human who had been stationed on the ship, which wasn't that out of place these days. Often times, however it was one of the other species. A group of Unggoy walked by chattering about their new status as more than slaves as Hannah answered.

"For the most part just translating, though I was on Cairo Station when the covenant found Earth, from there I went on to New Mombassa to . . ." She was cut off by Lord Hood.

"Your were on the Cairo?" Lord Hood asked almost confused.

"Yes sir . . . I mean, yes, I was working as a translator for soldiers with different languages, when the covenant attacked I was put in standard armor and fought with the marines. I was assigned to help Miranda Keys get to In Amber Clad." Hannah said with pride.

"Huh, lucky you remembered your training from. . . You didn't by chance see him? Did you?" Lord Hood asked Hannah seriously. Hannah knew exactly who Lord Hood was talking about.

"The Master Chief? Yes I did. We were pinned down by opposition, trying to get Keys to her ship, thats when he came out of nowhere and mowed down two squads of Covenant. He then jumped out of an airlock tunnel and went outside of the station." Hannah said thinking back to the memory, she was still in awe of it. Lord Hood laughed a tiny bit.

"Yes that sounds like John, a man of few words and tremendous action." He mused. Hannah was still thinking about her time on the Cairo. A memory flashed into her mind.

 **Flash Back**

 **Cairo Station**

They were pinned down between some crates and a wall, using it as a makeshift cover. Hannah cursed herself for not getting off the station when she had a chance. Miranda Keys had offered to take her aboard the In Amber Clad, but Hannah declined, saying that she was needed here

"Great idea Hannah, now you can die for glory instead of living for everything else." She mumbled as she lifted the helmet out of her face again. The dam armory had given her the wrong sized helmet, it was making things too difficult for her.

On her left was a private Carter Loxally, pretty much fresh off boot camp. To her left was a Sergeant Tim Grimes. They were the only ones left from the party that took Miranda Keys to her ship.

"Oh, don't be such a sowerpuss." Grimes said as he fired his M45 shotgun over the crates, taking out one of the grunt shock troopers. "This is fun if you forget all about the Covenant bomb rigged to send us all to kingdom come like the Malta and Athens."

"Thanks for reminding me." Carter said as he blind fired his MA5D Assault Rifle over the crates taking out a grunt or two by pure luck. Hannah was trying to calm herself down enough to make a clear shot with her 99D series Sniper Rifle she had picked up from a fallen soldier. She had been an excellent shot during training and had even been told she would make a great marksman in the marines, but her true calling had always been languages. She wanted to stay away from battle as much as possible. . . so much for that.

Hannah took a deep breath and whipped her rifle into action. She looked down the sights and lined up shot after shot and taking fire. After 4 shots her clip was depleted and there were 2 less elites and 2 less grunts that she had to worry about.

"Nice shot Shepard!" Carter said before he was cut off. After looking over the crates, he had taken a needler bolt to the eye. He slumped down to the ground with the pink crystal still glowing in his socket, and he wasn't breathing. Hannah slumped down behind the crates, finding it hard to breathe. She had just watched a kid die. Anger rose in her stomach as she was about to fire off more shots into the covenant forces. Before she could however, Grimes pulled her back down behind the crates.

"You trying to get yourself killed? Keep your damn head down." He yelled at her. Just then all the firing stopped. There was confusion for a moment, then the sound of the covenant boarding craft detaching from the station and the energy shields going up to stop depressurisation.

Hannah timidly looked over the crates to see a couple of dead covenant bodies but no live Covenant.

"The bomb." Grimes said as he stepped out from the crates as well. "Oh shi-" He started but was cut off by the intercom. The voice of Lord Hood came out loud and clear.

"The Master Chief has defused the bomb. I repeat, the Master Chief has defused the bomb." He said with obvious joy. Before Hannah or Grimes could celebrate, something shook the wall to their right, they caught sight of something fly out of the station.

Hannah quickly ran over to the window and stuck up her sniper rifle to see what it was. What she saw shocked her so much she almost dropped the gun.

"What was that?" Grimes asked as he looked out the giant window.

"It's the Master Chief." Hannah said in disbelief still looking down the sights of the rifle. She couldn't believe her eyes. "He's . . . he's guiding the bomb towards a Covenant Supercarrier." Hannah never thought those words would come out of her mouth.

"No goddamn way. Are you serious." Grimes asked trying to see farther into the void.

"Dead serious, he's passing by a Halcyon class right now." She paused for a moment. "He just went into the Carrier. . . Now he's coming out and." She was cut off by a huge explosion but she barely even noticed it, her eyes were still trained on the Chief.

"And now he landed on the top of . . . The In Amber Clad." She finished, still baffled by the whole ballet of destruction she had witnessed.

"My god. He just saved us all." Grimes said with wonder in his eyes.

 **End Flashback**

Hannah finally came out of her stupor as they boarded a Pelican and took off from the hangar. Lord Hood had stayed silent until they bordered the craft.

"So what did you do after Cairo, you said something about New Mombassa?" He asked leaning back in his seat.

"Yes." Hannah started. "I was placed with Grimes as a tactical recon group in New Mombasa. After he . . ." Hannah paused "After he died I was promoted to captain. We led multiple excursions all around the city, even helped a couple of ODSTs on the ground. I made it my mission to not let anyone die under my command. Im proud to say no one did." She said her shoulder stiffened slightly at the end of her sentence.

"Hmm." Lord Hood mused in deep thought. "So you've been in a position of leadership before?" He asked her.

"Um, Yes. Why do you ask?" Hannah asked Lord Hood with curiosity.

"Oh no reason, just thinking of the future." Lord Hood deflected, but he had a small hint of a smile on his face.

 _January 12, 2554 - Admiral Ackerson's Office - ONI - Admiral Ackerson_

The Admiral shoveled all his belongings into a box, he couldn't believe they had gone through with it. He hadn't been this angry since his body double had been captured and killed aboard CAS Triumphant Declaration. Dealing with his supposed 'Death' had been a Bureaucratic and Political fuster cluck.

They had actually made peace with the damn covenant, he never thought he would see the day. He was just about to leave when a glowing Holo Drone floated in through his open window. This frankly scared the Admiral half to death and he dropped all of his belongings on the ground.

The Holo Drone activated, revealing a hologram of a tall human man with brown hair and some form of glowing blue augmented eyes. He had on an impeccable suit and was smoking a hand rolled cigarette.

"Admiral Ackerson. I have a proposition for you. The organization I own is very interested in your services." He said taking a pull from his cigarette and walking casually over to the other side of Ackerson's office. "I pay well, and we have unlimited resources. Interested?"

Ackerson paused for a few seconds, still trying to stop the shock from leaking into his voice.

"That depends." Ackerson said trying to sound calm, on the inside he was scared out of his wits. How had this guy gotten a Holo Drone though ONI security. "What organization do you own? And who are you?"

"I'll tell you the name of my organization once you agree to join it. As for my name." He said taking in another huff of smoke and blowing it out. "You can call me The Illusive Man."

 _November 24, 2554 - Scorched Earth Alliance Research Center - New Reach - Yantan son of Yurtur._

Nervousness was not even close to what Yantan was feeling. He was feeling complete and unadulterated fear. Just 15 years old, barely out of basic training and into adulthood and he had volunteered for the Serum /Project. He swore this entire place had been made to strike fear into his heart. Number one is was overseen by the Mother of Demons, Doctor Catherine Halsey. Sure his father Yurtur was working with the Human woman and said she grew on you, but that did not put his mind at ease.

From what his father had told him, this Halsey had been working on the Serum Project ever since she had stopped working on the Spartan II's. She was quoted to say that she thought the humans would eventually join the covenant or visa versa. That it was idiotic to not work on the future. That is why she created the Spartan serum for the Unggoy, because she saw the potential they possess. Still not comforting to Yantan.

On top of all that. The research base was located on a planet the Covenant had destroyed, Reach. Sure, the joint species R&D had found a way to terraform the planet back to its Pre Glassing likeness, but the process still killed billions, and destroyed every settlement on the planet. Now it just looked like a normal planet, without any settlements on it. Except this one. All of these things made Yantan want to do what his brother did and attach plasma grenades onto his hands and wade into a pack of enemies. But Yantan steeled himself. This was for the good of his entire race. No longer would the Unggoy be used as the bullet shields by any species. This would propel them forward past what they are, into what they were meant to be.

So far, many of the Unggoy trusted the newcomer humans. Through their ingenuity and the help of covenant scientists like Yantan's father, the Unggoy no longer needed to lug around their giant gas packs. Now they had a methane converter that was practically miniscule and gave them all the air they needed. Based off of the Mjolnir armor, the Methane converter would take air and use a miniaturised fusion core to feed energy to the converter. It was ingenious, and the Unggoy could live free of their packs for the first time since their induction into the Covenant.

Yantan was walking alongside his father who was leading him to the Evo-Pod, the thing that would change him forever or kill him grotesquely. He pushed this thought from his mind as he saw the Mother of Demons herself coming down the iron stairs that were overlooking the Evo-Pod. The pod was 6 Meters tall and had some sort of pulley system with a cage overhanging the top. The cage did not excite Yantan.

"So this is your son, Yantan was it?" Halsey asked as she walked up to Yantan and Yurtur, the latter nodded his head in affirmation. "Pleasure to meet you, we appreciate the courage it took to volunteer for the program." She said as she turned around and began to walk to the other side of the vat. All around were people working on computers, or talking with one another. There were all manner of species here. Humans, and Huragok mostly. There were a spattering of Sangheili, Unggoy and Kig-yar as well. Though there were no Yanme'e around, strange but not too strange to think about for long.

"Why did you pick me, if I might ask?" Yantan asked, this caused Doctor Halsey to glance behind her for a moment before continued walking around the Evo-Pod. "I mean there must of been other volunteers." He said in his short squeaky voice, compared to the female's voice he sounded like a child.

"There were other volunteers, yes." She said sounding almost annoyed as she typed something on her data pad. "But none were as young as you, or as well developed as you." Halsey said not looking up from her pad. Yantan couldn't help but blush.

"The Alliance academy swears you are one of the best Unggoy they have trained, though they haven't been around for very long." She continued as they finally got to the other side of the vat. Yantan didn't know weather to take this as a compliment or an insult. On this side was a glass doorway to a glass tunnel that led straight to the top of the Evo-Pod. It was cloudy with methane on the inside. Also inside the room were multiple people all dressed in hazmat suits. One was Human male and two others were Sangheili females.

"These attendants will instruct you were to go and oversee the augmentation process. Best of luck." She said like she was bored and walked away. Yantan almost panicked again, but his father calmed him down.

"She just has a lot on her mind right now, trust me, when the procedure is over she will be a lot more inviting trust me." Yurtur said to him and patted him on the back. Taking in a deep breath, Yantan walked through the first door and let it fill completely with methane. After something dinged the next door opened and Yantan removed his mask. Tis revealed his spiky teeth and his nostrils. The smell of a room full of Methane was comforting to the Unggoy, sometimes it felt a little recycled coming from a mask.

"Please undress to your underclothes then follow us." One of the Sangheili females said. Her voice was slightly deeper than Doctor Halsey's but still sounded feminine in nature. Yantan could see her pale skin through the glass on the hazmat suit. She looked imposing, but her brown eyes seemed kind. As quickly as he could he undid his standard orange battle armor and stripped down to what a human had once called 'His skivvies' He liked the word and used it often, well as often as he could anyway.

He waddled his way up the stairs following the three scientists up the the top. At the top of the staircase was a metal platform that led to the cage. It was several times too large to fit one Unggoy, but Yantan guessed they didn't really know what the serum would actually do, sure he had seen schematics of what he might become, but things could always go wrong. He quickly changed his train of thought to something else, just counting his steps was good enough. It took him 23 steps to get to the cage. Not nearly enough time for him to ready himself. Again he steeled his nerves and followed the scientists orders. They put him on a medical trolley and stuck needles with tubes attached all around his bodies at each of his major blood vessels. It didn't hurt much, but it wasn't exactly comfortable. They fixed a methane breather on his face that was attached to a long tube that led straight into a methane tank. The scientists assured Yantan that it would have enough methane before they carted him into the middle of the cage. They explained that at first they would administer a pain killer before the gave him the serum. The fact that he would need a painkiller for the procedure was scary enough.

Before he could even begin to second guess his decision, the three scientists left the cage and locked the door behind them. As soon as this happened, the cage began to lower into the Evo-Pod. Yantan fought hard not to panic, though every fiber of his being wanted to run away screaming, he stayed put and looked calm, even if he wasn't.

The Evo-Pod was filled with Unggoy tailored artificial stem cells, it kind of tingled to be in it. Soon he was fully submerged in the blue water liquid, waiting anxiously for the procedure to begin. Before long, a clear liquid was pumped through the tubes and Yantan relaxed a considerable amount. He felt foggy and light headed, and he was okay with that. He felt no panic, no fear, not much of anything really. Just really, really okay. Then he caught sight of something else, a purple blue liquid was being pumped through the tubes now, it was pretty. He followed it carefully and with no concern for what it would do to him.

As soon as it reached the needles in his body however, he quickly felt different about the whole thing. It was like someone was pumping pure fire into his veins and ripping him apart from the inside out. Everything in his body cried out for mercy including himself but the liquid was merciless. The pain only got worse and worse, it felt like he was dieing. Then he blacked out.

Yantan awoke in a white room. It felt like no time had past but the ache in his body told him otherwise. His eyes fluttered open and he immediately remembered everything that happened. He had done it, he had survived the augmentations. How did he look? What changed about him? The first thing he noticed was that his eyesight had become increasingly better. Normal eye sight for an Unggoy was about 10/20. Now however, it felt like he had 20/10 maybe even more.

Next thing he heard was a familiar gasp. His head whipped around to see his father staring at him with wide eyes and joy on his face. Yantan jolted upright.

"Dad!" Yantan cried out. He was about to embrace him when he noticed a couple of changes. First thing was that when he bolted upright, his father seemed much smaller than usual, second thing was his voice. It still had a familiar unggoy twinge to it but it was so much deeper. It sounded like a male Humans voice, granted a smaller male human but a male human nonetheless.

"Yantan! Your awake, much quicker than we anticipated. . .This is remarkable." He said looking over his son. In response Yantan began to look over himself. Yantan gasped at what he saw.

His torso was long and muscular, reminiscent of a humans chest, some muscles were more defined than possible for Unggoy. He had noticeable pectoral muscles and a longer abdomen than he usually had. His legs were twice as long as usual. His upper leg was not the thin appendage it used to be. It was muscular and reminded him of Sangheili upper legs, but it jointed like a humans leg leading down to his shins that were longer and more agile looking than any Unggoy's legs. They still had the familiar spines on them and his feet were still 3 toed but much more slender, much like the feet of lizards on Earth. His arms reflected his legs in a way. Much more muscular and slender, yet reminiscent of his old arms. they spined like normal but appeared to be more sturdy and less stocky than a normal arm. His forearm back spines appeared less armored and looked like it was made of bone. His hands looked like his feet except better equipped to grab ledges and use tools. He twiddled his fingers to see them move at an astounding rate. Faster than before. everything appeared to be better than normal, supernatural in a way. Yantan was full of energy and excitement.

"Oh my Gods!" Yantan said with joy as he attempted to stand up but fell backwards onto the bed when he did so. He quickly deduced that he didn't exactly know how to walk in this body yet. Again he tried to get up, this time slower, letting his muscles react for him rather than is memory. He took a shaky step forward, then another. Then he started to walk around the room, then he began to run. It was glorious how fast he could move. Then he caught sight of something in the mirror, him. He checked himself over, Yantan was considered good looking by Unggoy standards before but now? Now he was possibly the best looking Unggoy in existence. He had everything a female would look for in a mate. He had sharper bone structure, sharper teeth, though now they were covered by a lip which was strange, wider eyes and a less chubby face.

"Father, this, this is amazing!" He spun around to see his father waddling over to him. Only then did Yantan realise his father was wearing a Methane converter, and Yantan was not. Yantan noticed a significant lack of methane wisps in the room. Yantan sucked in a deep breath and let it out. Noticing he wasn't dieing from the inhalation of Oxygen he became very confused.

"Uh dad, why can I breathe oxygen." He asked still getting used to his deep voice. Yurtur merely shook his head and spoke in his squeaky voice

"Something not planned but welcome in the Serum. You my boy have become the next step in Unggoy evolution. How do you feel?" He asked. He was taken by surprise when his now bigger than him son tackled him in an embrace. After the hug he stood up and began to test out some of his new arms and legs.

"I feel . . ." He started with a smile on his face. "I feel like going for a test drive.

 _April 2, 2557 - En route to Wake of Starlight from Diana Base on Luna - SSV Ghoul Transport - Spartan IV Edward Buck_

Buck never really liked flying transports, these new Ghoul class transports weren't really an making him feel different about it. Sure they were new and vastly superior in every way to Falcons and Phantoms, it didn't put him at ease. But that was the way it was, and he couldn't change that. He could however complain about every single bump the thing made, and that was good enough for him.

The one thing he did like about the new transports were the seats. Since every species ass is just a little bit different, the seats were made out of a type of advanced memory foam. A soldier could lose track of time in one of these seats, but that wasn't the only thing different. The entire ship was made out of the new metal called Adamantium, named after a metal from old comic books. Whoever named it that deserved to be smacked upside the head for their stupidity, then immediately be bought a drink for the pure awesomeness of making a Adamantium real.

The ship was based off of both Falcon and Phantom architecture. It had the base body of a falcon without wings, and the 'wings' of a phantom and the ability to open up its sides for combat like a phantom would. It uses anti gravity technology and pulsar engines and used the now standard issue Twin Heart engines, just smaller versions. It also opened in the back with a miniaturised thanatos cannon chain gun, called a Scythe chaingun by the SASMs or Systems Alliance Space Marines. Buck worked with some SASMs for a time before he joined the Spartan Program and became a full fledged Spartan IV. He felt stronger and more battle ready than he had ever felt before. As an ODST he had been told that the Spartans were freaks of nature, but now they were celebrated. Praised as the next step in human evolution, Buck didn't know about that but he did know that he felt more than human now, superhuman was a better term.

Buck took of his helmet to look down on it once again. It was a variation of the old ODST helmet, renamed the Helljumper Armor. Buck had chosen this armor because he never wanted to forget where he came from and what event led him to where he was today.

One of the reasons he had chosen the Spartan program when it was offered to him by the former Noble team member Jun was the loss of his entire team to Drone forces when they stole ships from the Alliance. Romeo, Mickey, Rookie, Dutch, all of them killed. They had all been stationed onboard the SSV Atlantic Storm, a Buwan class Supercarrier. It was swarmed and taken control by massive amounts drones. The remainder of Alpha Nine ODST's had held their own for a while. Dutch was the first to be killed, shot in the heart with a needle rifle bolt. Next was Mickey who sacrificed himself for the rest of the squad. Romeo died in a firefight, killed by multiple plasma burns. The last to go was The Rookie. He pushed Buck into the last lifepod and held off enemy forces until it launched. Buck never forgave himself for being the only survivor. After two months he was cleared for duty by military psychologists and accepted Juns offer of being inducted to the Spartan Program. Veronica Dare had left him again after the end of the New Covenant War, so there was nothing left holding him to his old life. The augmentation procedure had been rough but he recovered in record time, driven by his hatred of the Drones. No one called them Yanme'e anymore. Being referred to by the name the covenant gave them was the worst insult for a species, calling the Yanme'e Drones wasn't nearly harsh enough in Bucks opinion.

"Hey, You a spartan." One of the other passengers aboard the Ghoul said to Buck. Buck looked up and saw a Archunggoy staring at him, waiting for him to answer. Buck was still adjusting to seeing the Archunggoy instead of the regular old Unggoy. They were far larger and far more tactically adept than before, and quite frankly impressed the hell out of Buck. They also scared him a little, similar to the way that Sangheili scared him. Scarry in the way that you respect, and in the way you pity the guys that they are fighting. This particular Archunggoy had on black battle armor and a Spec Ops helmet on. **(Looks just like the old spec ops unggoy armor just more suited for the Archunggoy. If confused look it up on halo nation)** The Archunggoy took off his helmet to reveal his face, he was a little tanner than other Archunggoy he had seen, must of just gotten off of shore leave.

"Yup, just got reassigned. You?" Buck said making conversation with the trooper. The Archunggoy's voice was deeper than most, closely resembling a 16 year old human boys voice.

"Just got back from a Little R&R on Earth. Love your planet. Particularly the Dead Sea, reminds of the waters back home." He said cracking a smile. "How long you been a Spartan?"

"Your sure do seem fond of Spartans." Buck said smiling back. "I've been a Spartan for about two months. Just got done with recovery.

"Sorry to pry." The Archunggoy said sheepishly. "It's just I heard a rumor while on Earth that some group of scientists was working on making Spartan versions of all other Alliance Species. Just got me excited." He said as he held out a tan 4 fingered hand.

"Names Olplo son of Loplot, Archunggoy Special Operations. Pleased to meet you." Buck leaned over and shook his hand firmly.

"Spartan IV Edward Buck, Likewise." He said leaning back in his chair. Suddenly there was a rumbling overhead, machinery could be heard as the Ghoul landed.

"Looks like we're here." Olplo said with anticipation, standing up like everyone else on the shuttle. Buck put on his helmet and prepared to disembark.

"Nice meeting you." Olplo said as he jogged off to follow the rest of his ASO squad.

A waypoint appeared on Bucks HUD which he followed to the far side of the hangar. It led him straight toward a group of 3 Spartans, each of them much larger than he was, which was saying something. These Spartans were easily 7 feet tall if not taller. One was holding a highly modified sniper rifle and was inspecting it very carefully, she was wearing some form of heavily modified armor, with scopes all over the place and almost no visor at all. Another Spartan, wearing the Hermes class armor was checking her Battle Rifle at an astounding speed, showing off major dexterous and speed capabilities, a small rabbit was imprinted on her armor. The last Spartan was wearing Centurion armor and was sharpening a knife, even though it looked sharp enough. As if working as one being they all looked up at Buck and stood to their full heights

"Um, Hi there. Spartan IV Edward B-" Buck started but was cut off by the Hermes armor spartan.

"Edward Buck, yes. We know who you are." She said looking back down at her rifle and making more changes to it, again moving very fast.

"Don't mind her, she's just being funny, or at least trying to. I'm Fred 104." Said the Centurion armored spartan. "The one with the sniper is Linda 058." He said motioning over to the scope covered Spartan who just gave a quick two finger salut

"Howdy." She said with a hint of a southern american accent.

"And the cynic over there is Kelly 087." He finished motioning over to the Hermes clad spartan who only gave Fred a one finger salute. It took a second for Buck to process why the names sounded so familiar, when he did he literally stumbled backwards.

"You're Blue Team!" he exclaimed in shock. Kelly swore under her breath and made a few motions in the air. A familiar sound of credits being transferred was heard and Linda let out a small chuckle.

"Just once, just once I'd like to meet someone who isn't shocked about us being Blue Team." Kelly said exacerbated.

"Yes, we are Blue Team, and now so are you." Fred 104 said stoically.

"What . . .?" Buck said reeling from this newest wave of shock. "Why me? What have I done, who told you that I was being assigned here?" Buck fired of questions. Each of the other Spartans sighed.

"So the new ones are just as talkative." Fred said to the others, who chuckled. "To answer your question, we chose you, no one told us to pick you."

"But why? Im just a former ODST." He said, this time Kelly cut him off.

"A former ODST who survived not only Reach but also New Mombasa, all without augmentation." She told him. "Trust me, you wouldn't be here if all of us weren't absolutely sure we wanted you." She finished, receiving affirming head nods from Linda and Fred.

"Uh, Ok then. If you say so, scary, spartan, lady." He said a little unnerved how fast she had gotten up from her sitting position. Buck quickly regained his composure after she sat back down.

"So, there is one last squad member you have to meet. Im sure you're familiar with Auntie Dot? The Noble team A.I.?" Fred said to Buck. Buck was only vaguely familiar with the Dumb A.I. used by Noble Team during the Fall of Reach, but nodded his head anyway.

"Well Noble team had her, we have the Enhanced Defense Intelligence. The first Smart A.I. not synthesised using human tissue. She's the first of her kind, and it's only fitting that she gets paired with a team of mostly Spartan II's, the first of our kind. But she just likes to be called. . ." Fred said as he lifted up his hand. A small pillar appeared with a large sphere on top of it. A small grid blipped on the 'Face' of the pillar and a small circle was ringed around the pillar, just underneath the sphere.

"EDI." The small pillar said. "Its very nice to meet you Edward Buck." The A.I. said with a synthesised voice. The only problem was that it was a far too familiar synthesised voice. Buck took a step backwards, staring down at the Avatar.

"Veronica?" Buck asked it confused. There was a pause before the A.I. spoke again.

"Oh, I believe a slight problem has arised." She said as she rotated around and faced Fred. "My voice was synthesised by copying the vocal recordings of one, Veronica Dare. Someone our newest recruit was previously romantically involved with." EDI said to the other members of Blue Team.

"That might make things awkward." Kelly stated bluntly.

"No its fine, just surprised me a little. It won't be a problem. . . Just as long as she doesn't call me Eddie." Buck said waving off the whole thing. EDI's avatar blipped slightly.

"Acknowledged, Edward Buck's preferenced name is now Eddie." She stated in a serious voice. Buck stared down at the A.I., narrowing his eyes slightly.

"That was a joke." She said plainly yet again.

"Right." Buck said disbelievingly. "Just Buck will be fine."

"I will network with your armor, I will help you in combat as much as I can, Just Buck.." EDI Stated with a slight inflection at the end. Buck sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Play nice EDI." Fred said glaring down at the A.I.s Avatar. Kelly turned to Linda and said in a not so hushed tone

"This is going to be fun."

 _1 year, 11 months, 31 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes since John 117 went into cryo - Forward Unto Dawn - Cortana_

"So in actuality, the Asari were a failed attempt at making Humans by the Precurs . . ." Spark was telling Cortana before the ship began to move. Cortana and Spark fell silent as they scanned what was happening. The scans were showing the impossible, the ship was being towed out of orbit by some kind of ship. It wasn't Covenant or Human. From Cortana's memory banks of information, courtesy of 343 Guilty Spark, It was Turian. An actual Turian ship had found them and was pulling them out of the orbit of Chasm.

"I believe we require the aid of the Spartan." Spark said as he floated off the pedestal and looked up at the ceiling with worry.

"What about your beam cannon? Can't you use that?" Cortana asked in a hushed tone, she had stopped floating and was walking around the room nervously.

"I would only be able to use it for a short time before my energy source would be depleted. I am not equipped to take on an entire ships worth of enemies. We need the Spartan." Spark said, his synthesised voice quivering slightly.

"Allright, Allright." She said walking over to the cryo tube that held The Master Chief. "Can't say he is going to be happy to see you."

"I'm sure you will handle that." Spark said floating out in the open, making sure he was visible.

Cortana scoffed and took a big breath.

"Wake up Chief, we need you." She said tapping a few keys, not really necessary being as she was in the system, but it made her feel alive to do so. "I need you." She said under her breath. Staring at the still form of the Chief in the Cryo tube.

The Tube door opened as the ice thawed from the inside. At first the Chief did nothing, then he shook his head and stared directly at Cortana, he shook his head slightly again. Then his visor turned to Spark, and he tensed up to shoot himself out of the tube and directly at the Monitor. He would of if not for the intervention of Cortana. She put her hands on his chest and applied pressure on him.

This made the Spartan stop in his tracks as he felt Cortana's hands on his armor. He paused for a few moments, looking down at Cortana's hands, then he looked up to her face.

"How are you . . ." He started but she cut him off.

"Nice to see you too John." She said gasping still at actually touching something. "I reworked your suits firmware while you were out. I can simulate contact with you by having your suits receptors interpret me as a physical, and visa versa with my avatar." She explained, suddenly noticing how long she had been 'touching' The Master Chief. She took several steps backward in response.

"What the hell is _he_ doing here." John said pointing an accusatory finger at the Monitor. Spark was about to explain himself when Cortana motioned that she would handle this. "That thing killed Johnson"

"He was rampant Chief. The same way I would be if he had not shown up." She said taking a step closer to the Chief.

"Rampant?" Chief asked still staring at the monitor. Cortana then explained how she came to trust 343 Guilty Spark and his backstory and how she had been given Meta sentients

"So, you are both living things now?" The Chief asked. Before Cortana could nod, a loud banging was heard from above. They had been docked with the Turian ship.

"What was that?" Chief asked as he quickly held out his chip for Cortana to jump into, which she happily did. Cortana was eager to get back inside the Master Chiefs head. Sure she liked walking around the ship, but home will always be home. Her face appeared in the upper right hand corner of his hud

"Long story. Not covenant, but enemies. Grab my projector if you can." She said pleadingly. The Chief had hold of the small floating ball before it even hit the ground. He magnetically fastened it to his hip. His next move was to grab his MA5D Assault Rifle from its place next to his cryo tube. When he checked it however, he found it to have only 5 bullets inside.

"Have to find ammo on the way." He said loading the clip into the gun. He was about to head out when Spark floated into his way.

"I may have a solution for your problem." His eye glowed bright as a small ball of energy popped up in front of him. Then parts of metal from around the ship started to flake off and soar into the glowing ball. The ball of light dimmed and floating in the grasp of the Monitors beam was a pristine magazine of bullets ready to be loaded into the MA5D.

"Thats, useful." The Chief said as he plucked the ammo out of Sparks hand. "Thanks." He said as he pushed past him.

"I believe I can be of even more use to you, Reclaimer." Spark called after the spartan. John looked over his shoulder at the A.I.

"How so." He asked his voice letting past a small bit of contempt. If Guilty Spark noticed this, he did not show it.

"I believe I could give you ammunition constantly in battle, I swear it would not impair your ability in battle, and might even help your abilities in some ways." Spark took in a deep breath, a bad habit learned from Cortana. "I could integrate myself in your armor, as a kind of Armor Ability as your species calls them." He said floating a little closer. The Chief stepped back in response.

"Chief please, he is only trying to help." Cortana said to the Master Chief. This made the Spartan pause.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" He asked taking a step closer to the Monitor.

"He made me what I am, saved my life. I trust him." Her avatar depiction said in his hud.

"Do it." Chief said to Spark.

"Gladly." Spark responded. He then began to glow bright white, not just his eye, his entire body. Pieces of him began to funnel into the left gauntlet of the Chief's armor. After one more blinding flash, Spark was gone from the world. John looked around his surrounding looking for the Monitor before his synthesized voice spoke from somewhere below him.

"Down here." Spark said. Master Chief and Cortana followed the voice down to Master Chiefs left gauntlet, which had been modified severely. Instead of the spartans usual green, the left gauntlet was now silver, the same color of Sparks chassis. On the back of the Chiefs hand was a single glowing blue eye, the Monitors Eye.

"Your architecture is not that dissimilar from that of the Forerunners. Interesting." Spark said as a tiny hologram version of his chassis suddenly was projected from the blue eye.

"Don't get any funny ideas." He told the small depiction of Spark. Cortana held back a smile.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Now what I can do his create any ammunition you require. If you have the need for more firepower, tap the blue button on your gauntlet. I can also provide tactical strategy and advice." He said before disappearing back into the glowing eye. Suddenly a new avatar window popped up on Chiefs hud, one depicting the floating chassis of the monitor. Both of the windows shrunk down to accommodate for the two windows.

"Cause one voice in my head wasn't enough." He said with a sigh.

"Oh you love me," Cortana teased. "Now, Let's get going."

 **A/N: So there is chapter 2! I hope you all liked it. I hope you all were happy with the way I portrayed certain characters. I am not as familiar with some as I am with others, such as Blue Team. This is where you guys and galls come in. Please tell me if anyone goes to OOC, I will be trying to give them their own personalities that will change as the story arc continues. With the release of Halo 5 coming soon, the cannon personalities may not match up perfectly with the Blue Team represented. So please tell me your opinions on how people should act. Every bit of help is appreciated. Also, just an FYI, The Normandy Crew will be a big part of this story, so who do you think should hop along with the Shepard Twins on their quest to save the galaxy, specifically from the Halo/RVB Cannon. Master Chief, and Cortana are a given but who else should? I do already have a few people picked out but I want your guys' and galls' opinion. As I said before, there will be great opportunity for character interactions throughout the Fic, so please, tell me what you want to happen. You already saw the bit between EDI and Buck, that was mostly because both Veronica Dare and EDI are voiced by the same person, Tricia Helfer. So how should others interact? Tali being slightly afraid of Cortana but then becoming good friends? Mordin and Halsey talking about science? Or maybe even Master Chief teaching Grunt some things about battle. Everything is up for grabs, Including character ships. Who do we want to end up together? Please tell me! Your suggestions have already changed some things in the story just after one chapter, so please don't stop now. I want to hear your ideas!**

 **So thank you all so much fir reading, and I hope you all catch the next chapter of JoW.**


	3. Chapter 3: Give em' Hell Spartan

**A/N: Hello everyone. Thank you all so much for the relative popularity of this Fic. Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone who reviewed or private messaged me. I Enjoy all of your guy's and gal's support. So today we will get our first look at some of the Mass Effect universe instead of the Halo universe. I've been focusing on the Halo universe because that's what the story requires at this point. As the chapters go on I will begin to merge the two universes into the actual story! I hope you all are as excited as I am for that! Big shout out to Fanficer73 for being my awesome beta, making this stuff not so cringe worthy. Without further ado, I do not own Mass Effect or Halo or any related franchises. Please enjoy.**

 _January 22, 2577 - Just Outside Influence of Chasm - Forward Unto Dawn & Unknown Turian Vessel - John 117_

John ran his way down the corridor, quickly moving past a hologram of the broken ship. He felt a small bit stiff after his long time in cryo but it wasn't anything he wasn't used to. What he wasn't used to was having two A.I. in his head, especially when one of the A.I.s had been the cause of Johnson's death. However, Cortana said that he could be trusted, that he was no longer rampant. The only reason he didn't destroy the Monitor on sight was because Cortana said he shouldn't, and if he couldn't trust Cortana, he couldn't trust anyone.

Suddenly, something came up on his motion tracker, 3 red dots. They weren't in any kind of military formation, and were moving slowly.

"Use caution, Reclaimer." The two windows featuring Cortana and Spark blipped onto his hud. "I am not totally certain of the kinds of weapons these foes possess, or if they will attack on sight." Spark said worriedly. Cortana started to blip slightly.

"I on the other hand can try and translate what they are saying." She said pulling up a screen in front of her. "Spark had access to all the species languages, and with permission I can automatically convert their language to something you understand."

"Why do you need my permission?" John asked as he slowed down his movements and crouched down beside a wall, trying to stay out of the light.

"In order to translate for you, I have to rewire some synapses in your brain. I figured it would only be polite if I asked first." Cortana said cheekily. John's eyes crinkled under his visor, closest thing to a smile John would ever do, and only ever when Cortana said something wity.

"I trust you." He said in his typical stoicism, but Cortana smiled back nonetheless, knowing she had made John 'smile'.

"This might sting a little." She warned before tapping something on the screen in front of her. John felt a small twinge on the sides of his head. Quickly he shook it off and got his bearings back. Soon he heard footsteps coming down the hall. He stepped off to the side behind cover and out of the way of the lights. Then all the lights went off in the section of the hallway. Cortana winked through her place on the HUD.

"I got your back Chief." she said before disappearing again. Chief stood as still as a statue and waited for the footsteps to get closer. As the not so stealthy footfalls got closer and closer to Chief, he began to make out what they were saying. The voices sounded like that of Humans, just a little deeper in some ways. It sounded like normal speech, but with every syllable, a faint humming could be heard.

"I'm just saying, this ship is unlike any other ship made by council races. We could be sitting on a goldmine here." One voice said, sounded slightly higher pitched. The next voice was hardened, deeper somewhat.

"Shut your mouth, this is salvage. Nothing more. We will be lucky to get a thousand credits for the scrap metal." The voice groaned. "Lets just sweep for tech and move out, I don't like being this far out of Citadel Space."

"Split up and do quick scans. I want to be towing this wreck away in 10. Move out." A commanding voice boomed. Deeper than even the last two, but still sounding similar. The three blips split off one went straight, another turned left, the last one went right heading straight for John. John slowed his breathing down, trying to move as little as possible. The footsteps grew closer and closer, then the thing making them walked right past the chief.

It was humanoid in shape but vastly different from anything Human, or Covenant for that matter. Its face was covered by some kind of helmet, a base helmet in the front but had a large outcropping on the back. It had two very large toes and strange outcroppings on the backs of its legs. The aliens waist was spindly and reminiscent of a Grunts but built for running, while its abdomen was extremely thin. Its upper body looked rather Human, just very wide on all fronts. It had two arms that were very thin and 3 fingers, two large fingers and one thumb.

Master Chief studied some more, taking in as much information he could. It appeared to be scanning the area with some sort of orange, glowing, hologram on its arm. It tilted its neck around, looking from side to side. Master Chief looked at it closely, it appeared to get to a certain point on its neck before it couldn't go any further. He checked to make sure his speakers were off before he spoke to Cortana and Spark.

"Cortana, Spark. What info can you give me on this?" He said. The alien made no motion to indicate that he heard Chief, Cortana spoke first

"Turian, major species in the galaxy. Extremely militaristic. Shoot first ask questions later." She said pulling up an anatomical representation of the species. The generic Turian face was rather Human, more Human than an Elite in most ways. It looked like a face with tough plates all over it. Long fringes of the plate like material came off the back of the head. Its nose was flat against its face and its mouth had mandibles on the side of it.

"Quickest way to make a kill?" John asked tensing his body, getting ready to pounce.

"Your knife to the forehead should do the trick." Cortana answered.

"Or snapping of the neck, either would work." Spark added. The Turian was about 5 meters away, the Spartan quickly jumped out from his hiding spot. The alien turned around too late, The Chief was already on top of him. Before the Turian could react, John was pressing down on his throat with his right forearm and driving his knife straight into the thing's skull. John noticed that it took a little bit more to drive in the blade, with thicker skin than he was used to. He quickly picked himself off of the now dead Alien.

"Spartan, I believe I can scan him. Please lift up your left hand." Spark said, the Chief obliged. Suddenly, the Monitor's eye receded into the Master Chiefs hand, sinking in like his armor was made of water. John turned to look at his palm to see the eye surface on the other side. John bent down and held his hand above the body. A soft blue light washed over the alien's body.

"Hmm, Interesting." The Monitor hummed. The orange hologram appeared on the left arm of the Turian again. "This is called an Omni-Tool. Ingenious for a species at this stage in technological evolution." The eye on the Chief's hand glowed blue with energy. The orange hologram on the Turian shuttered slightly before turning off completely. Then a small piece of metal slowly pushed its way out of the skin of the Turians hand, slowly it floated its way towards the glowing blue eye. John turned his hand over and watched as the metal sunk into the eye on his palm. It blipped orange then back to its baby blue color then shifted to the back of his hand.

All of a sudden, the glowing orange hologram appeared on Master Chiefs left forearm, exactly the way it appeared on the arm of the Turian.

"It isn't as advanced as Spark is, but it should allow easier interface with anything we find on their ship." Cortana said to the Chief. John inspected the glowing orange hologram before readying up again.

"Interface?" John asked as he dragged the body out of the middle of the hall and off into the shadows.

"We're not staying here forever Chief." Cortana said chidingly. "These aliens were kind enough to give us a ride."

"Where to next?" John said in stride making his way towards the intersection. Before anyone could answer, two blips popped out on the screen. They had appeared out of thin air, right in front of him. Suddenly two figures appeared out of thin air. Staring right at John, confusion all over their faces. The stunned silence didn't last long however, John was already trying to move out of their line of sight.

He wasn't quick enough however, the Turians were already opening fire. The first bullet ripped right through his shields, making him an easy target. But after the shields were down, he didn't feel pain at all from the bullets. He paused and turned to look at the two Aliens. They were still both unloading on him but nothing was making it past his armor.

"Cortana?" John asked as he stood up straight, watching the projectiles bounce off him like spit balls.

"They appear to be using small pieces of metal moving at very high speeds. This armor is made to withstand twice the amount of force in each bullet. Even the bodysuit is more than enough to withstand it."

"Their weapons are extremely insufficient. A main problem with "The Traps" technology." Spark said appearing on Master Chiefs hud. Without hesitation, The Chief ran full speed into the bullets, ignoring them completely. The two Turians tried to back away from the charging Spartan, but moved too slow.

John crashed the butt of his rifle into the face of one of the Turians and quickly shot the other one right between the eyes. He turned to the first Turian again and grabbed its head with both his hands and broke its neck.

The thing fell to the ground in a pile and Master Chief again scanned the bodies.

"They appear to have some sort of cloaking device installed. Not nearly as advanced as they Covenant tech but still effective, for a short time." Spark said as the blue light washed over the bodies of the soldiers. Cortana spoke up next in alarm.

"I'm picking up some coms coming from the ship, patching it through." She said as a radio signal displayed on the screen. A voice came over the speakers in John's helmet. It sounded similar to the others voice, just a little lighter than the second deepest voice.

"I say again, Carotess, report. . . Kajus? Sidonis? . . . All hands we have a Code 7, suit up and be ready for combat." The voice then cut all communication.

"Looks like they know we're coming." Cortana said cheerfully.

"Set a waypoint to the entrance to the ship. Sooner we get there the less time they have." John said standing up straight. He released the clip from his rifle and let the clip fall from his hand. As soon as it did it was disintegrated and along with some other parts from the Turians armor, flowed into the palm of Chiefs hand. The objects glowed slightly before another perfect clip was in the Master Chiefs hand. He loaded it into his gun and began to sprint down the hallway, following the waypoint.

 _June 17, 2555 - Scorched Earth Alliance Research Center - New Reach - Henry Glassman_

Henry had gotten up early in the morning, the first thing he did was make a cup of coffee for himself. The second thing he did was think about Vimea. Vimea was a particularly bright Sangheili scientist working with Glassman along with many other people on the Vulcan project. The goal of the project was to find a way to make a new and better metal alloy. Stronger than Titanium and Alloy. Alloy was the name for the Covenant metal used on every one of their ships and vehicles. The idea was to combine them together to make a super metal, stronger than both.

Vimea was attractive to Glassman, not in the traditional sense of course, but more in a connection based way. Henry thought Vimea and him just clicked. They laughed at each others jokes, bantered playfully, and they enjoyed each others company. Henry would have asked her out if she wasn't so, alien. Henry had nothing against any of the other species, not at all. He was just worried how she would react, or how everyone else would. As far as Glassman knew, there wasn't a single interspecies relationship in the entirety of Alliance space, how would other people react?

This was all still hypothetical to Henry however. He didn't have the guts to even tell the woman how he felt, no use getting himself all worked up over it now. He had other things to worry about today, like the experiment.

Today was the day that his idea was up for trial. Each of the researchers had come up with their own ideas about the metal synthesis. Most of it consisted of superheating the two metals, or something of the like. These never worked however. The two metals were very stubborn, never fusing correctly. Most of the time the two metals would just come out half and half, like someone had just soldered the two metals together. Glassman's theory was being tested today and if it worked, the implications could be phenomenal.

Henry Glassman briskly walked out of his small apartment like bungalow and out towards the main research building. Scorched earth was built like a small town, a residential section, work section, food section. All the basics. It was early in the morning, most of the other scientists were still sleeping at this point. Henry had to make it in early, to set up his attempt at the metal synthesis. On his way over his mind drifted to Vimea again, he thought about the cute way she twitched her upper mandibles when she became flustered, how her hips swayed slightly as she walked, her finely toned backside and her perky breasts . . .

"Get ahold of yourself Glassman!" He grumbled, cursing himself for not keeping himself under control. He couldn't even think about Vimea without needing a cold shower. He shook away his thoughts on Vimea as he saw a figure jogging his way past him.

"Morning Glassman." The figure said in a slightly higher pitched voice. Only slightly though.

"Goodmorning Yantan, you're up early." Glassman smiled at the Unggoy who stopped to walk with him, though Unggoy no longer seemed to fit him. This creature in front of him was no more Unggoy than Henry was, he was so much more now. Faster, stronger, smarter, better. The official term for him was ex-Unggoy Sapient.

"Yeah." He chuckled nervously. "Couldn't sleep, had too many ideas. After the combat sim last night, I just got flooded with ideas. I was up working all night on schematics for something. I was actually wondering if you would take a look at them." Yantan said as he grabbed something out of his sweat pants pocket. He was wearing human grey training sweatpants and sweatshirt. Yantan had taken to wearing human clothing ever since his evolution. Most of his clothes were actually Henry's. During his first few weeks on base, Glassman had befriended the Unggoy and taken to spending time with him. Other than his father Yurtur, Yantan didn't have many friends on base, besides Glassman of course.

Glassman gave Yantan a judgemental stare.

"You know you should be getting more sleep, if you don't it might not mix well with your new DNA." Glassman said as he crossed his arms, inadvertently spilling coffee on himself. Yantan held back a giggle as he held out the paper again.

"Come on man, you try going through a species changing experience and not be excited about it. I'll go and take a nap right after my run if you look over these schematics." Yantan pleaded, he even quivered his upper lip, something he had taken a liking two ever since he acquired it, and made his eyes extra wide. Glassman could never resist against Yantan's face. A small smile broke across his lips.

"Only if you go to bed right after." Henry told him taking the folded up paper in his hands. He opened the paper to find an expert drawing of some kind of mechanism on top of what was clearly Yantan's arm. It had some sort of slide and locking mechanism along with gears attached to the top part of the forearm. On the sliding mechanism was a Human Battle rifle, a favorite of Yantan's, just in a smaller proportion. It appeared to be more symmetrical and lying on its side and attached to the sliding mechanism

"Did you come up with this after yesterday's training exercise?" Glassman said, unable to look away from the schematics. Yantan shrugged and blushed a little.

"Yeah, the way Sgt. Reaves showed me to hold the gun inspired me." Yantan said, switching his weight from side to side in anticipation. Glassman had seen Reaves show Yantan a technique for more accurate firing of weapon. He had Yantan place his gun on his elbow to steady it in the joint. Laying his right arm over the left, he could steady his rifle better than just by holding it normally. Yantan even found that by holding it this way, the bone in his arm made a perfect line to the target, all Yantan had to do was aim with his protrusion and fire.

"It's ingenious, Yantan. After I'm done today, I'll help you work on it!" Glassman said as he handed the rough schematic, Yantan was about to jump for joy when another voice chimed in behind the two.

"Good morning Yantan, Henry." A soft, sultry yet commanding voice said behind them. Glassman's heart began to pump furiously, he recognised the voice all too well. Both of the men turned around slowly to see a tall Sangheili woman smiling at both of them. Vimea. She had smooth, slightly grey-white skin and deep beautiful blue eyes. Her slitted pupils were wide and aware. Her head, like all female Sangheili, was slightly shorter length wise, and her top mandible were tucked together around her upper teeth. Sangheili only have both mandibles unclasped in times when they are out of breath, like in battle. She had on normal attire, a grey turtle neck and a white lab coat. She was also wearing a pair of human style pants tailored to Sangheili, normal blue jeans that were a bit longer than usual. She had a datapad clutched in her hands close to her chest. Her horizontal eyelids blinked, waiting for a response.

"Morning Vimea." Yantan said not looking up from his schematic.

"Hey Vimea. You're up early." Glassman said as he tried to keep the nervousness from his voice.

"Yeah, just wanted to get a head start on today. Wanted to help you out with the Metal Synthesis today, if you don't mind that is." She asked him, Glassman thought he heard a little bit of nervousness in her voice, but that might of been his imagination.

"Oh, No of course I want your help! I need all the help I can get today!" Henry said putting the Sangheili at ease. Vimea sighed in relief, her upper mandible twitched slightly.

"Okay good, otherwise you probably would have screwed everything up." Vimea said jokingly and with a wink. Winking had been picked up by every species from the humans. Most of the ex-Covenant had their own cultures suppressed or overtaken by the Covenant and subsequently lost it. The only thing they could do was adopt a new culture, human culture. It wasn't uncommon to see a Kig-yar with a tattoo, a couple of Unggoy playing Ping-Pong, even a Sangheili wearing human clothes was normal.

The sight of Vimea winking at him made Glassman heart skip a beat. He just winked back as best as he could.

"Alright well, I'll see you inside!" Vimea said as she walked by. Glassman couldn't help but follow her swaying hips as she trotted on to the main building. Glassman was brought out of his trance when he noticed Yantan was staring at him strangely.

"Were you . . .?" Yantan started as he looked from Vimea to Glassman again perplexed. "Were you just checking out Vimea?" He asked putting away his blueprint staring at Henry. Glassman fumbled with his words, which was all the confirmation Yantan needed.

"Holy crap. You were checking out Vimea!" Yantan almost yelled.

"Keep your freaking voice down." Glassman said, throwing his hand over Yantan mouth, who quickly tore away the hands.

"Do you like her?" He asked with a quieter voice. Glassman again fumbled with his words.

"Oh my gods!" He said in his same quiet voice but with the same intensity. "Dude ask her out!"

"I can't." Henry complained.

"Why, because you guys work together?" Yantan asked.

"No that's not it." Glassman rubbed his forehead, took off his glasses and cleaned them with his coat.

"Is it because she's Sangheili?" Yantan asked. Glassman paused. "Ahh. You feel weird about it, don't you?" Yantan continued. Glassman gave a telling look.

"Ahh. Dude don't get all worked up about it. Its not that big of a deal." Yantan said patting Glassman on the back.

"Yeah it is, we're not even the same species." Glassman said pointing back and forth from him to the building Vimea was in. He was getting a little distressed.

"Like that matters, you can still admire beauty in other species can't you? Hell, I even find some of your human woman beautiful." Yantan consoled the doctor who looked up in surprise.

"You do?" Glassman asked disbelievingly.

"Of course, you'd have to be stupid not to. You're not strange Henry, you're just sentient." Yantan said to him patting him on the back once more. "Now I want you to promise me you will at least try to ask Vimea out today, take her out for drinks." Yantan suggested.

"But I can't just. . ." Glassman started.

"Promise." Yantan repeated with emphasis and a bit of scolding.

"Fine, I promise." Glassman lifted his right hand in an oathing manner. "Now get to bed Yantan." It was Glassman's turn to scold. Yantan laughed and began to walk away, before he could take his first step, Glassman spoke up.

"Yantan." He said. "Thanks."

"Go get em' tiger." Yantan said with a wink, a phrase and gesture he learned from old human vids. With that, the ex-Unggoy Sapient turned and left.. Glassman took a deep breath and a sip of his coffee, then he started to walk towards to the research building.

He made his way through many security checkpoints and off into the R&D labs. Only a couple people were in this part of the building at this time. One of which was the great Doctor Halsey. She was currently looking down at one of her pet projects right now.

"Good morning Doctor Halsey." Henry awkwardly waved at her. She didn't even look up at him, just gave him a single hand shake that could be interpreted as a wave. Glassman was surprised, he usually just got the cold shoulder from Halsey, a wave was extraordinary.

Glassman quickly made his way over to the Vulcan program's area. It was situated at the far back end of the lab. He rushed past Yantan's Evo-Pod and past what appeared to be a MJOLNIR Spartan armor tailored for a Sangheili.

He set down his coffee and immediately met up with Vimea, they exchanged greetings but immediately began to work on Glassman's project. They worked for hours, people trickled in as the sun rose. Over the hours, Glassman tried to bring up to Vimea the idea of going out tonight, but he kept losing his nerve. Finally they had finished all that was needed to make Glassman's idea work. What they had made, appeared to be some sort of super strength plexiglass sectioned off into three parts. Two parts on top were pointed downward with a large tube going down to a small sphere at the bottom. Around all of the sphere were multiple tesla coil like structures.

"Is this your experiment, Glassman?" The head of the Vulcan project asked. The head was a tall Kig-Yar, T'vaoan with crimson red feathers. His name was Jit-Nee. Strangely calm for a Kig-Yar, and one of the best and brightest of all the Kig-Yar.

"Yes, Vimea helped me in putting it together." Henry said gesturing over to the Sangheili who was standing off to the side.

"Well then, lets get this thing moving." Jit said as everyone gathered around the machine.

"Hey Glassman, where are your metal heaters?" One of his colleagues asked him.

"Don't need them." Glassman said simply. Most were confused, others were nodding their heads in agreement, though they had no idea what was happening. The ones who truly knew what was going on were face palming and cursing themselves for not being smarter.

Glassman set the Alloy into one of the sectioned off parts of the glass box, then a hunk of titanium into the other. He closed both sides with a hiss, then locked them. Two tubes were attached to the sides of the box, also hissing in response

"Starting pressurization now."Glassman said hitting a button on a nearby control panel. Oxygen rushed into the box from both sides, somehow the plexiglass held after 5 minutes of oxygen being poured in. At first nothing happened. Than the two metals began to melt away. Turning into their liquid forms at such a high pressure. The melted pieces flowed down the tubes and into the sphere below.

"Using pressure instead of heaters, impressive but inefficient." One of the scientists said.

"Just wait." Glassman said with a knowing smile. The last drop of Alloy fell into the sphere which promptly was covered by another piece of plexiglass. One of the Tesla coils moved into place above it.

"Firing now." Glassman said as he pushed another button. The coils sparked for a second before they started to shine with huge amounts of energy. Then with a loud zapping noise, they all shot their payload into the metal liquid. The whole thing glowed so bright, everyone had to look away to shield their eyes.

The light finally died down and everyone looked down to see Glassman opening the sphere, when he came up he had something in his hands, lifting it with exertion. He hefted it onto the table and let it fall with a large bang. As he stepped away, everyone could see what it was. A sphere the size of a bocce ball that looked like it was pure silver, except for the purple pearlescence that shone off it.

"My gods he did it, he actually did it." Somebody said. Everyone was so enamored with the sphere they barely noticed a small woman walk in behind them.

"What's the meaning of this?" Halsey asked. Everyone quickly stepped out of her way, no one wanted to feel the wrath of the Mother of Demons. "I hear a large explosion and it disrupts my work, explain yourselves."

"Ma'am, we did it." Jit said stepping out of the way so Halsey could see the sphere. Halsey's anger diminished quickly as she walked right up to the table and bent down to look at the sphere.

"Who finally did it?" She asked not looking away from the sphere.

"I did, Doctor Halsey." Henry said from the other side of the table. He tried to make himself look presentable, but did not succeed. He had done a lot of work today, he had stripped off his over shirt and was only in a white-t and black khakis. His hair was ruffled and his glasses were askew.

Halsey looked up, her face was almost surprised. She stared at Glassman for a moment before she nodded her head.

"It's going to need a name." Halsey said tapping some things into her data pad.

"I already gave it one Ma'am. Adamantium." Glassman said, trying to hold back his glee. Halsey paused for a moment.

"Adamantium. Fictional metal from 21st century fiction." She thought for a moment. "It fits. Good job Dr. Glassman." She said before tapping some things out on her datapad and turning to leave. For Doctor Halsey, that was as close to the highest of praise you could get. Everyone came up to Henry and congratulated him, even Jit came up and shook his hand. The last person to come up to him was Vimea.

"Good job Hen-" She was cut off by a very nervous looking Henry.

"Wanna go out for drinks tonight?" He asked quickly and with his voice almost cracking. Vimea looked taken by surprise, but then her features softened a bit and she smiled.

"I would love too."

 _September 13, 2556 - Scorched Earth Alliance Research Center - New Reach - Doctor Catherine Halsey_

She couldn't believe the ungrateful swines! How could they do this to her? Catherine Halsey, The Catherine Halsey. The Mother of Demons as she had began to be known as. After all she had done for them, they turn on her. The Alliance had issued a warrant for her arrest, she had been branded a simple war criminal, how insulting. Now they would take her away from her work, something they were absolutely not allowed to do. This would force her hand. She would have to undergo the process sooner than she thought. It would be regrettable, but she had to.

As quickly as Halsey could, she moved through her lab into a sectioned off part of her office. She went through multiple identity checks before a door opened up for her, blended seamlessly into the wall. She walked through it following a long sloped corridor leading down into a cold sub basement. All it led to was one lone room with a chair that wouldn't look out of place in a dentists office positioned in the middle of the room. This chair however was not used for teeth, it was used for a brain. She strapped herself in and let the machine do its work. She watched the world with her own eyes for the last time.

 _September 13, 2556 - Scorched Earth Alliance Research Center - New Reach - Spartan IV Locke_

Locke had been assigned another hunter job. His mission was to find and bring in Doctor Catherine Halsey. He was not happy about this. Doctor Halsey was a brilliant woman, very much the reason that humanity had made it this far. Her Spartans had saved the Earth many a time, and now he was being sent to bring her into custody. With him was the rest of squad. A Kig-Yar sniper by the name of Ket-Rin, a female Ruutian. Two Lekgolo hunter forms. Ketumo Telu Oran and Lomali Telu Deri. Both of them skilled in battle. The last was a Sangheili named Ltan M'namee. The double ee had been re-adapted when the Alliance had been formed.

"Area clear sir." Ket-Rin said in a fast and sharp voice. Locke stepped forward, adjusting his Hunter helmet. He tapped something on his wrist and activated the ARTEMIS tracking system. Before he could move however. Something appeared on a nearby pedestal. Locke turned to see a holographic representation of Halsey. Locke straightened up, as did everyone else on his squad.

"Ma'am, I've been ordered to take you in." Locke said stoically. "And you should know better than to use a Pedestal, these aren't made for communication ma'am."

"I believe you will have some trouble with that, as for the Pedestal, well. follow the waypoint." She said before disappearing. As soon as she did, a waypoint appeared on the Spartans HUD. He turned to see the rest of the squad shrug their shoulders, a human gesture adopted by all species, similar to the wink.

The team followed the waypoint to a wall in a very sparse office, before they could question it, a wall opened up to reveal a pathway.

Being as careful as they could, Locke's fireteam made their way down the tunnel and into a dimly lit room with something in the center. The team walked up and examined it, Ket was making a dry heaving noise at the sight of it.

The body of Halsey lay motionless on the operating table, the top of her head was sawed off. Her brain was missing

Then, much to most of the teams confusion, Halsey appeared on another pedestal in the room, smiling smugly. Locke understood only to well.

"Grab the body for transport, we're leaving." Locke said as he began to walk out of the room. Ltan immediately became confused.

"Sir, I'm sorry I don't understand. We still need to find Halsey. Somehow she is still alive, she is using a Pedestal to communicate from." He said gesturing to the hologram of Halsey.

"Ltan, think. What are Pedestals supposed to be used by?" Locke said to the Sangheili. "We were ordered to find and recover the Human Woman Catherine Halsey." Locke paused as he looked over to the hologram of Halsey who looked rather pleased with herself.

"We weren't told anything about the A.I. Halsey." Locke said walking past his squadmate and back up the ramp. The A.I. known as Halsey nodded to the rest of the squad before disappearing away.

 _August 27, 2557 - Wake of Starlight - In orbit of unnamed planet 98 - Spartan IV Edward Buck_

Buck was just getting ready to follow the rest of Blue Team into cryo when a proximity alert came on over the speakers. He reacted within seconds, getting ready to head back to the armor bay when EDI popped up on the closest terminal.

"Buck, we have a situation." She said almost monotone

"Yeah I noticed EDI." he said irritated, he was about to keep moving when she stopped him.

"You don't understand. The ship we are in proximity with is larger than this vessel, it has already begun its magnetic tractor beam. This ship is not allowed to fall into enemy hands. Cole Protocol Lockdown will be initiated."

"What?" Buck said confused out of his mind. "I thought Cole Protocol was just for A.I." Buck stated.

"It was, but due to upgrades of an Alliance Vessel, an entire ship lost is unacceptable. I need you to bring me into cryo with you." EDI said with certainty.

"What why?" Buck said getting more confused by the minute. "Why am I going into cryo?"

"Cryo sleep will be the safest place for you, if the lockdown is achieved, you will be cut off from food and water, you will die Buck. Cryo is shielded during lockdown. We will both be safe." She said again. Without more hesitation, Buck placed his hand onto the Pedestal and EDI hard transferred into his Bio Suit.

"You should still be able to hear me Buck." EDI's voice said in Bucks head.

"What ship is it do we know?" Buck asked as he started towards the Cryo bay again.

"Records peg it as a Forerunner ship." EDI said calmly.

"FORERUNNER?!" He yelled out almost tripping. "Will the ship be ok? Will it be able to stop anything from getting in?" Buck fired off.

"Yes, the metal we use on our ships is actually more advanced than anything ever created by the forerunners, we will be fine. Please hurry Buck." EDI said, for the first time she showed worry. This did not help out Bucks mindset.

Buck finally reached cryo bay and jumped into a pod. Not caring to set a timer he slammed down on the self seal button.

"Lockdown in effect in 10, 9, 8." EDI counted down in Bucks head. The ice began to freeze over his body. Just before he lost consciousness he saw multiple shutters closing down in front of him, all with a familiar purple pearlessence. He closed his eyes before EDI could even reach one.

 _2587 - Council Chamber - Citadel - Asari Councilor_

Today would certainly be a strange day for the Asari Councilor. She received word this morning that a Quarian had requested a meeting with the Council on behalf of the Quarian Admiralty Board . Something about a strange and urgent finding while they drifted. The Asari Councilor had her doubts about the whole thing but was interested to say the least.

The Councilor walked out onto her podium next to her were the Turian and Salarian councilors, both of them were staring curiously at the Quarian Man in front of them.

"Thank you for seeing me, My name is Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Rayya. I am the captain of the ship that discovered the artifact, so to speak." He said with a heavily accented voice. He began to tap away at his Omni-tool

"When you say artifact, what do you mean exactly." The Salarian Councilor said putting his hand up to his Councilors, I was hoping you could tell me." He said as he lifted his Omni-tool up. A picture was displayed of a huge ring. Just a snapshot of it though, very bad quality, but seeable. It was next to a gas giant that it dwarfed my a considerable size, which means that even if the gas giant was as small as it could possibly be, the ring would still make the Citadel look like a children's toy.

"What is this, and where did you find it?" The Turian councilor said zooming in on the ring

"We have no idea, and we never actually found it." Rael said wringing his hands together.

"What do you mean you never found it, this thing is massive. How could you not find it?" The Salarian Councilor said still enamored by the picture.

"That's just it. It appeared on our scanners for a moment, then it just disappeared, along with the entire space around it. The system it appeared to be in does not exist. We even went to the place where it was supposed to be and there was nothing but empty space." Rael told them, still wringing his fingers.

A moment passed as the Asari Councilor thought this over in her head. To her, this all seemed like a lie, some scheme to get money for the dying Quarians. Did this Quarian think she was born last year? Fortunately she wasn't the only one who felt this way.

"This is obviously just a lie." The Turian councilor said with authority.

"Wha- What?" Rael said taken aback.

"I concur, the odds of this being fact are far below the norm. If you are lying you are doing a very poor job, if you aren't get your scanners checked, they are obviously faulty." The Salarian Councilor said sliding away his holographic representation of the picture.

"But listen to me, these rings are an ancient artifact, the last time we found something like this it propelled the galaxy forward thousands of years, and we are currently sitting on it!" Rael said, anger starting to seep into his voice

"We?" The Asari Councilor laughed. "We did not find anything." She said gesturing to the council and the Quarian. "We did." She said gesturing to only the council.

"You just happened to be around at the time." She continued to say. Raell again stepped backward in shock of the Councilors words.

"This 'Ring'" The Turian councilor said making quotations in the air, "Is nothing but a trick of light or a trick of Quarian make, I do not care which. All I know is that it is a waste of my time." The Turian said as he shook his head.

"And Mine." The Salarian said. The Asari councilor nodded her head in agreement. The Quarian was obviously angry now.

"How dare you question the integrity of the Quarian people!" He yelled at them.

"Is this the same integrity that led to the creation of the Geth?" The Turian Councilor asked getting angrier by the moment. This shut the Quarian up for a moment before he started again.

"We will continue our search for the ring, with or without your help. I pray that the Quarian people will be as generous to you Bosh'tets when we find it." He finished and walked away in anger, muttering curses. The three councilors shook their heads at eachother.

"This meeting is adjourned." The Asari councilor said as she quickly slinked away. She hoped the Quarians didn't do anything rash, that would be a headache that she didn't need. The Councilor didn't want to think about that right now. She had an appointment with Sha'ira the Asari Consort and she didn't want anything to ruin it for her.

 _2587 - Creators Cradle - Rannoch - Geth Intelligence_

The Creator known as Rael'Zorah had been denied by the council. That was expected. The Council has always been slow to process information, or to ignore it entirely. The Geth however were different. Their sensors had picked up the Ring as well. They knew what they saw. They knew that it had disappeared. They had figured out within minutes how many explanations there were for it. Too many for numbers. They cut down to plausible ones. Still many. Plausible based on existing data. 100. Each program would spend hours researching and prodding each possible and plausible explanation based on the data they had received. It didn't take long, the Geth are not burdened by slow thoughts. Soon the Geth came up with one conclusion. Another civilization has cloaked the Ring and the space around it, possibly other places too. They had also found a way to make it impossible to travel to. This is reasoned by the fact that the Quarians had tried to get there but found only empty space. No civilization could cloak multiple star systems, unless they were extremely powerful, but the more possible solution was somehow moving something around the area rather than hiding the area from sight. The Geth would have to find a way to bypass the counter measure. But that would take time. Months maybe. For now, the Geth would compile a consensus. They would wait as they have before.

 _2588 - Alliance Search and Rescue - Deep Space - Agent Carolina_

It didn't take long for the UNSC to pick us up, though now it was The Systems Alliance. A lot had happened since we had left from Valhalla . The techs tried to explain the reason for the lapse in time, something about being caught by a black hole. Didn't really matter to Carolina. All that mattered to her was that it was over, the project, her father the director. It was finished, now she could actually do something other than fumble around in the dark with the Reds and Blues.

"Hey hey hey hey. Careful there Carolina, I was a Blue remember?" A slightly arrogant voice said in her head. A small hologram of a Spartan carrying a sniper rifle appeared floating in mid air just next to her.

"You know Church, some thoughts are private." Carolina said to the small floating A.I.

"Yeah, but most aren't. How are you holding up?" Church asked looking up at the aqua colored spartan.

"Fine, more than fine. I'm just glad its all over." She said leaning back in her chair.

"Ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh. Look," Church said as he pointed over to the other side of the transport. "Tucker is finally finding out that he didn't give birth to a alien."

"You never told him?" Carolina said with humor in her voice.

"Hell no. It was so much better for him to believe that he got pregnant then it was to tell him that his armor just had a baby alien in it." Church said as he watched in amusement.

"Why did the Director do that?" Carolina asked the floating A.I. "That seems a little . . ."

"Intense? Your father wanted to know how the troops would react if something like that ever did happen." The A.I. said, watching the group of reds and blues figure out what had really been going on.

"He really was creative, wasn't he." Carolina said sitting back in her chair on the transport.

"A little too creative if you ask me. I'm still trying to find out how he made up an entire religion for an alien race then have a bunch of Sangheili go along with it.

"He had his ways." Carolina commented. A soldier came in with new armor, stretching out like he had just put it on. He was wearing the basic armor with a mostly grey color with spots of yellow

"Wash, new clothes I see?" Carolina said as she stood up to greet her fellow freelancer.

"Yeah, they got an armoring system onboard. Really high tech. We missed a lot since we were gone Carolina." Wash said as he looked around the ship. The small A.I. appeared again, leaning against Carolina's helmet.

"You got that right, I've datamined this transports systems, you wouldn't believe half of the stuff they've done since we left. This Alliance that replaced the UNSC is doing a great job actually. I didn't think they had it in them." Church finished blipping back to floating in mid air.

"Well, whatever happened, I'd like to think it was for the better." Washington said as he started walking over to the reds and blues.

"I believe that when I see it." Carolina said as she was about to sit back down.

"Hey wait a sec, there is another armor set. Made for you actually. Looks pretty cool Carolina. And cool it with the cynicism, that's my thing." He said as he walked along with Carolina in mid air. They both headed over to where wash had come out.

"Well, like father like daughter." Carolina said teasingly.

"Ughgh." Church shuddered. "Don't talk about that. Makes me feel all weird and gross . . . and old too."

"I'm glad the fact that you are basically my dad appeals to you so much." Carolina said hiding a smile.

"Hey, hey, hey. I'm like your dad three times removed. I'm literally a memory of a copy of a cloned brain of your father. Thats a lot of removals."

"Whatever you say Church." Carolina said as she stepped into the armor bay. A circular apparatus with multiple tools on it awaited her. Before she could step forward, a hologram of someone appeared in front of her.

"Hello Agent Carolina." A man said. He was shorter than her, but not by much. He had salt and pepper hair with a round face. "My name his Captain Lasky, of the Infinity." He said pulling up a schematic of the ship. Carolina and a newly appeared church both saluted the captain.

"At ease." He said kindly. "I see you've been paired with an A.I., intelligence says your name is Epsilon." He said turning to the floating A.I.

"I go by Church now." He said respectfully.

"Ahh, my mistake. Well I have a proposition for the two of you." Lasky said as he tapped something on his end. The Apparatus began to spin and add things to itself, aqua colored power armor. "Same one I gave Agent Washington. He accepted. Before I give you your new armor I need you both to accept as well." Lasky said with his hands behind his back.

"From what we can tell, you two work very well together. The Alliance is not one to break apart a good team, but we also don't want to see a team get lost either." He said ominously.

"Sir, I'm feeling we are not getting the full story." Carolina said her hand at her side and another on her hip.

"A while back we lost a ship, The Wake of Starlight. Onboard were many valuable personal and hardware, among being Blue Team. I believe you are familiar." Lasky asked staying fairly stationary.

"Yes, we use to watch their vids during training." Carolina replied.

"We need them back, and were going to need a good team for it." Lasky said as the Apparatus finally stopped moving, like it was beckoning her. "We would like you to be on that team."

"We?" Carolina and Church said at the same time. Lasky smiled and looked down at something in his hand. The ship around them rumbled.

"It appears you have docked with the Infinity. The ones who asked for you to be on their team will be onboard shortly. Do you accept our offer?" Lasky said staring at both of them. Carolina and Church looked at eachother.

"Just a moment please." Carolina said as Church blipped into her suit and shut off the speakers.

"What do you think Church?" Carolina said, her yellow-green eyes looking over to the A.I. window on her hud. Church thought for a moment before speaking.

"When I thought I was still a Human, I remember joining the army because I thought it was a good cause, fighting Aliens, protecting the earth yada yada. When I was put through the red vs blue stuff, I began to think thats all that war was. Just mindless battling between people that should be fighting. But I see what's been going recently with the Alliance, and I'm getting that sense of responsibility again, of fighting the good fight. To fight for a cause." Church paused for a little bit and waited for Carolina to respond.

"Plus, what else would we do with our lives. Relax? Not exactly our style." Church said laughing a small bit.

"Oh I don't know." Carolina joked back. "I was just thinking about going out for a beach day."

"Somehow I can't see you in a bikini out working on your tan." Church said, they both laughed.

"Do we have our answer than?" Church asked. When Carolina nodded, Church switched back on the speakers.

"We accept." They both said at the same time.

"Then suit up Spartan. Your team will be with you shortly." Lasky said as he disappeared.

"Why did he call me Spartan? I'm a Freelancer." Carolina said as she stepped into the armor bay.

"Same thing, technically anyway." Church said as Carolina transferred him into a nearby Pedestal. "The Freelancer program was sub section of the Spartan III program. The Director commandeered some of the Spartan serum, Mark IV power armor along with some equipment. You actually have better training though, more augmentation to be precise." Church said as he watched his partners armor be taken off.

"So, better than Spartan III's in a way." Carolina asked curiously.

"Well here's where it gets interesting. THe freelancers never had shields, like the Spartans nowadays do, so in order to compensate, you had more augmentation. Higher reflexes, strength, eyesight, the works." Church told her as she had new armor put on her. She finally got undocked by the armor bay and stepped off, she was wearing full recon armor, with her standard aqua blue. She tested out the feel of it and grabbed Church from his pedestal.

"Could probably even give the Master Chief a run for his money." Church told her as they turned around.

"I wouldn't say that." a gruff voice sounded as they turned around. Carolina turned around to see a group of people that were even more mismatched than the Reds and Blues. At the back of the group were two Spartans wearing dark grey and armor, armor that came up on the hud as "N7 standard." **(Basically standard Spartan IV armor but with the Alliance Navy Helmet from Mass Effect, except the visor is standard spartan visor, not clear.)** The next person was a huge Sangheili warrior, wearing shiny and ceremonial armor. The Hud read it simply as "Arbiter". The person next person was Washington who gave a friendly wave, which looked very out of place in this group.

The closest person to them, the one that spoke was the one that made Carolina freeze. He had on deep green armor and standard Mark VI set up. A scrape had come off over the right part of his chest. In his hands he held his signature MA5D Battle Rifle. Over his left shoulder was a floating silver ball with a bright blue eye. On his right shoulder was a beautiful blue woman, obviously an A.I., her hands behind her back.

Before she could react, Church sprung out as a hologram. He was wearing new armor now too, not reminiscent of Washington's armor, just blue. He appeared to be lost for words as he stared at the floating blue woman above the green spartans shoulder.

"Cortana?" He asked, obviously lost for words. The blue woman giggled.

"Yes. It's nice to see you again Alpha."

 _January 22, 2577 - Just Outside Influence of Chasm - Forward Unto Dawn & Unknown Turian Vessel - Cortana_

Cortana did scans of the Turian Ship as John ran through the broken Dawn. Spark was briefing John on some of the information he had learned on the Ark. Mostly about how to kill turians, and the abilities of their technology. Needless to say, John was unimpressed.

They had all made it to the place the Alien ship had docked, it was around the same size of the aft section of the Dawn. Cortana scanned the boarding tube for any lifeforms. She found none.

"Should be clear, but they may be cloaked, stay sharp." Cortana told the Master Chief worriedly. John took a quick look around the edge of the wall and was promptly met with small bullet to the face. Unfortunately for the turian, it only pissed the Spartan off.

Chief whirled around the corner of the tube and unloaded on anything that moved. The cloaking system that the aliens had was very advanced at hiding them, but was also rather useless after a while, only cloaking the individual for a short time. John got headshots on all the Turians whilst wading through their bullets.

"What is this thing?!" One of the turians yelled before he ate one of the Master Chiefs bullets. John quickly unloaded a clip and had a new one appear in his hands without a moment's pause. He kept showering the enemy with bullets, but they just kept on coming.

Dozens of Turians were piling out of the ship and out into the tube. It didn't matter that his armor was invulnerable from their weapons. The sheer force of them was enough to put him at a standstill, he was literally being pushed backward by the force of the bullets. John let out a huge breath as he slammed down hard on the blue button at the back of his hand. Sparks angry voice could be heard by all as the button glowed orange.

The Monitor screamed as the silver color vanished from Chiefs arm. John lifted his arm up towards the horde of Turians and his hand began to glow. Suddenly, like the fresh clips for his rifle, a silver ball began to form in his hand. Within a millisecond, Sparks body was clutched in the Chief's hand.

"I said TAP!" he cried as his eye turned a vibrant orange. A energy beam blasted out of the Monitors eye, all but melting everything in its path. The Chief guided the beam with his hand, washing away the life of every Turian in front of him.

Soon, all that was left of the forces was a smoldering pile of bodies.

"Glad you're on our side again Spark." John said as he let go of the floating robot. "Thanks." He finished as he stepped over a few bodies.

"My pleasure, Spartan. My scans show no more life forms on this vessel, though there may be some cloaked, I highly doubt it however." Spark said as he followed closely over the Chiefs left shoulder.

"I doubt they would come out, after seeing what just happened." Cortana said as she scanned the Chief's armor for any damage. Surprisingly none.

"I don't know how these people got so far with such ineffective weapons." Cortana said as the Chief walked through the strange vessel.

Eventually they found their way to the control room of the ship.

"What's the status of the ship?" Chief asked as he found a place for Cortana to hop into. She appeared in a hologram area, replacing a galaxy map.

"Everything is good to go . . . except for the FTL drives." Cortana said looking over to the Chief and Spark. "They purged them along with the local information core after you unleashed Spark over there. Engines still working, they could get us to almost the speed of light. We should be able to make it back to earth in about-" Cortana paused mid sentence.

"9 Years." She continued. Looking sadly over to John, he showed no emotion, he simply looked over to Spark.

"How long will it take you to make a cryochamber in here." He asked. Spark let out a small laugh and turned over to a wall. His eye began to glow as a massive stream of light poured out of it. In a matter of seconds, a cryo chamber rose right out of the floor.

"Fast enough?" Spark said with humor, John looked at him curiously. "Cortana's personality appears to have rubbed off on me a small bit." He explained shyly. "I hope the Cryo Chamber is to your liking, Spartan." He finished.

John turned over to Cortana who gave him a small smile and a head nod.

"Sweet dreams, John." Cortana told him. John only nodded his head.

"Wake me when you need me." He told her for the second time as he walked over to the cryo chamber. He leaned back into it and watched Cortana. Before the door closed all the way, he tossed out a small ball which cortana jumped to seamlessly.

Cortana watched in her full Human size as her Spartan fell asleep for the second time. His visor never turned away from her as the ice overtook the glass. The final his let Cortana know that the process was complete.

The blue Synthetic Organism took a place just opposite where the monitor was floating, she herself took up the same floating stance as before.

"As I was saying, The Asari were actually a failed interaction of the Humans by the Precu . . ." Spark continued to tell Cortana as she made the Turian ship detach from the ruin formerly known as Forward Unto Dawn. She plotted a course for Earth and hit the engines, propelling the ship at close to lightspeed back home.

 **A/N: So there is Chapter 3. I hope you all liked it. Now I will be trying to explain some of the stuff from previous episodes in future episodes that don't exactly make sense. I don't want to retcon anything anymore, just trying to go with the flow. As allways, your constructive criticism is very much appreciated. If anyone has any ideas about what to add to the fiction, I would be very happy to hear them. I love hearing your guys ideas and some of them have actually made an impact on the story already! So please Review and Rate away! If you have any more questions that might not fit in a review or might be to personal, feel free to PM me!**

 **Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you all catch the next chapter of JoW!**


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